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Strawberry Float
1 cup strawberries 1/4 cup sugar 3 egg whites Wash, hull, and sweeten the berries to taste, and set them in the refrigerator to get cold. Rub them through a colander. Beat the egg whites stiff, add the berries and sugar, and beat together till it is stiff enough to hold its shape. Serve plain or with cream.
Strawberry Whip--No. 1 3 egg whites 3/4 cup sugar 1 pint strawberries A few grains salt Rub the berries through a colander. Add the sugar. Put the whites into a mixing bowl. Put the berries and sugar in with the unbeaten whites. (Do not think there is a mistake in this recipe, and beat the whites before adding the berries to them.) Beat all together till very stiff, which will require from twenty to thirty minutes. When done it should be stiff enough to hold its shape.
When the ingredients are properly beaten, this recipe will make from one and one-half to two quarts; for the whipping makes it very light. Serve cold with small cookies or lady fingers. Custard sauce may be served with it. Strawberry Whip--No. 2 1 pint sweetened, stewed, or canned strawberries 2 egg whites Cornstarch Drain the juice from the fruit. Measure the juice, heat to boiling, and thicken with cornstarch in proportion of one round tablespoon cornstarch to one cup juice, stirring the cornstarch smooth with a little of the juice saved out for that purpose. Allow it to cool while beating the whites. Add the strawberry mixture to the beaten whites, and beat till very light and stiff.
A late-Victorian style fruit whip: raw egg white beaten with crushed berries until it holds a shape. The technique is sound as an aeration method, but the finished dish is never heated at any point.
- Why this one failsEvery version here is built on raw, unpasteurized egg white that is beaten, chilled and eaten. There is no cooking step and no acid or sugar concentration high enough to control Salmonella, which can be present inside intact shell eggs. A dessert of this kind is typically served cold and left standing, which only extends the risk.
- Long beating is not a safeguardThe twenty to thirty minutes of whipping called for in Whip No. 1 does nothing to the pathogen load. Neither does the boiled, cornstarch-thickened juice in No. 2, since it is cooled before it meets the unbeaten whites. If you want a fruit whip today, use a current recipe built on pasteurized egg white or aquafaba.
- Rub through a colanderThe instruction means pressing the berries through the perforations to leave seeds and skin behind. A fine-mesh sieve or a food mill with the fine plate does the same job faster; the aim is a smooth purée, not a crush.
- Unbeaten whites, on purposeThe parenthetical in Whip No. 1 is not an error. Fruit purée added to already-stiff whites collapses them; starting with slack whites lets the acid and sugar build a stable foam over a very long beat. It is the hinge of the method and worth knowing even if you apply it elsewhere.
- YieldThe book claims a pint of berries and three whites will expand to one and a half to two quarts, on the twenty to thirty minutes of beating it specifies.