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Uncooked Creamed Nuts
Mix 1 pound confectioner's sugar, white 1 unbeaten egg, 1 teaspoonful vanilla, and 2 teaspoonfuls cold water to a stiff paste. Shape in little balls; press between halved walnut or other nut meats. Stoned dates and large raisins may be filled with this cream, or it may be mixed with chopped nuts, shaped in bars, and cut in squares.
This is an uncooked fondant: the sugar is bound with raw egg white and nothing in the method ever brings that egg to a temperature that would make it safe.
- Raw egg white, never heatedThe whole point of the recipe is that it is uncooked, so the egg white goes into the candy raw and stays raw through shaping, filling and storage. Salmonella can be present in and on shell eggs, and neither sugar nor vanilla nor the small amount of water does anything to inactivate it.
- Sugar is not a safeguard hereA stiff sugar paste has a low water activity, which limits bacterial growth, but it does not kill what is already present. The method also involves shaping the paste by hand, and the recipe gives no storage instruction of any kind.
- Who is most at riskAnyone eating a raw-egg confection is exposed, but the risk is greatest for young children, older adults, pregnant women and anyone immunocompromised.
- If you want the sweetUncooked fondant centres, date and raisin fillings and walnut sandwiches are all still made today. Use a current recipe written with modern egg-handling practice rather than adapting this one.
- A note on the sugar"Confectioner's sugar" here corresponds to the powdered sugar sold now; some period grades were coarser, and starch was sometimes added to prevent caking. A pound is roughly 3 3/4 to 4 cups.