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Italian Meringue
1/2 cup sugar 1/4 cup water 1 tablespoon gelatine or 1/4 teaspoon granulated gelatine Whites 3 eggs 1 cup thin cream 1/2 tablespoon vanilla Make syrup by boiling sugar and water; pour slowly on beaten whites of eggs, and continue beating. Place in pan of ice-water, and beat until cold; dissolve gelatine in small quantity boiling water; strain into mixture; whip cream, fold in whip, and flavor.
A cold, foamy pudding sauce built on the Italian meringue method: hot syrup beaten into egg whites, stabilised with gelatine and lightened with whipped cream. Two details in the original need attention before you start.
- Cook the syrup to a stage, not just to a boil"boiling sugar and water" is too vague to work from. Modern practice for this kind of meringue takes the syrup into the thread-to-soft-ball range, roughly 238-240F, so that it firms the whites; a syrup barely boiled gives a slacker foam. The book itself specifies no temperature.
- The gelatine quantity is unusable as printedA tablespoon and a quarter teaspoon are not alternatives for the same job, and the line reads like a printing or transcription error; period books of this type normally paired a fraction of a box of sheet gelatine with about a tablespoon of the granulated kind. Dissolve whatever you use in a tablespoon of boiling water and err on the low side: too much and the sauce sets to a jelly.
- Add the gelatine warm, to a cool but not cold baseStraining dissolved gelatine into a mixture already beaten over ice-water will throw stringy threads. Let the meringue cool to just warm, beat the gelatine in, then finish over ice.
- "Thin cream"Period thin cream was the lighter of the two grades a dairy sold, usually put at somewhere around 18-20 percent fat, close to modern light cream; cream at that strength whips poorly if at all. Use heavy or whipping cream and whip only to soft peaks so it folds in without deflating the meringue.
- Beating over ice-waterThis was hand work with a wire whisk over a basin. A stand mixer does the same job; the point is simply that the meringue must be cold before the cream goes in.
- Egg whitesThe hot syrup heats the whites but does not reliably pasteurise them, and the sauce is served cold and uncooked. Use pasteurised whites if serving anyone elderly, pregnant, very young or immune-compromised.
- Yield and servingRoughly three to four cups of sauce. Spoon it over steamed or baked puddings, poached fruit or gingerbread; serve it the day it is made, as the foam will separate on standing.