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Peach Kisses
Pare, halve, and remove pits of ten large peaches. Make a syrup of one pint sugar to half a pint of water and cook till it strings from the spoon. Dip the peaches (on a wire spoon) into this then set them away to chill. Whip stiff the whites of four or five eggs with five tablespoons of powdered sugar. Have ready a saucepan of boiling water and into this drop the meringue by spoonfuls, cooking for two minutes, removing with flat skimmer carefully to a plate from which these kisses can be placed in the centres of the peach halves. Sprinkle chopped almonds over them and set on ice.
A late-summer assembly rather than a baked dessert: syrup-glazed peach halves filled with poached meringue. The hinge is the water for the meringue — it must be barely trembling, not boiling.
- Do not actually boil the meringueA rolling boil tears the spoonfuls apart and makes them weep. Bring the water to a boil, then drop the heat until the surface only shivers, around 180F, and poach for the stated two minutes, turning each once. Lift onto a towel-lined plate so the water drains off.
- The syrup measuresOne pint sugar is 2 cups; half a pint of water is 1 cup. "Strings from the spoon" is the thread stage, roughly 230F on a thermometer, when a lifted spoon trails a fine line. Cooked much beyond that the syrup will firm as it cools and coat the fruit too thickly.
- Dipping the peachesTwo or three seconds in the hot syrup is enough to glaze them; longer and firm peaches slump. Use freestone peaches, and drop them in boiling water for 30 seconds before paring to slip the skins.
- Powdered sugarIn books of this period "powdered sugar" usually means a fine granulated sugar, not the cornstarch-blended confectioners' sugar sold now. Either works here; superfine (caster) dissolves into the whites most cleanly.
- Egg whitesFour to five whites from modern large eggs may give somewhat more volume than the author expected. Whip to firm, glossy peaks, adding the sugar in stages, and use the meringue at once — it deflates as it stands.
- AlmondsChopped blanched almonds; toasting them lightly at 350F for six or seven minutes adds the flavor the raw nut lacks. Sprinkle at the last moment or they soften.
- "Set on ice"Refrigerate, uncovered, for no more than an hour or two. Poached meringue slowly gives up water and the syrup thins, so this is a dessert to assemble close to serving.
- YieldTen peaches make twenty filled halves, enough for eight to ten people at two halves each.
"Kisses" was a common nineteenth-century English name for a small meringue; the French baiser and the German Kuss were used for similar sugar-and-egg-white confections, though whether the English term is a direct translation of either is not established. What is unusual here is that the meringue is poached in water rather than dried in a slow oven, which makes these close to the poached meringues of œufs à la neige, set into fruit instead of custard. Cold fruit desserts of this kind were fashionable in American cookery around the turn of the twentieth century.