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Kornettes
3/4 cup finely chopped popped corn 1/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 tablespoon soft butter 1/2 teaspoon vanilla White 1 egg Blanched and chopped almonds 1/3 cup sugar Candied cherries Add butter to corn. Beat egg white until stiff, and add sugar gradually, continuing the beating. Combine mixtures; then add salt and vanilla. Drop mixture from tip of spoon on a well buttered sheet, one inch apart. Shape in circular form with case knife first dipped in cold water. Sprinkle with almonds and place a piece of candied cherry on the centre of each. Bake in a slow oven until delicately browned.
A meringue-based popcorn drop cookie from the era when popped corn was treated as a confectionery ingredient rather than a snack. The method is straightforward; the details that trip people up are the oven and the moisture.
- Slow ovenA slow oven in this period is roughly 250-300F. These are closer to meringues than cookies: the aim is to dry them through while taking on only the faintest color, so bake low and go by appearance rather than a fixed time.
- Measure after poppingThe 3/4 cup refers to popped corn already finely chopped, not to kernels. Use plain air-popped or lightly buttered corn with no salt coating or sugar glaze, and chop it in a food processor in short pulses so it stays crumbly rather than turning to powder.
- Egg whiteThe ingredient line calls for the white of one egg, beaten stiff before the sugar goes in a spoonful at a time. Beat until the meringue holds a firm peak and no sugar grit remains when you rub a little between your fingers.
- Butter into the corn firstSoftened butter is worked into the chopped corn before the meringue is folded in, which avoids knocking air out of the beaten white. 3/4 tablespoon is 2 1/4 teaspoons, so measure it rather than eyeballing.
- Case knifeA case knife is an ordinary blunt table knife. Dipping it in cold water keeps the sticky meringue from dragging as you press each mound into a neat round; the recipe specifies only that they be dropped an inch apart.
- The baking sheetA well-buttered sheet works but is fussy to release; parchment is more reliable with a sugar-heavy batter, and the cookies lift off cleanly once fully cooled.
- Yield and keepingThe recipe gives no yield; from this quantity expect a couple of dozen small rounds at most. Like all meringues they are hygroscopic and go soft within a day in humid air, so store them airtight as soon as they are cold.