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Four Whites of Eggs (Half pound of Castor Sugar)
A half pound of Castor Sugar.
A flat Meringue Board.
Cover a meringue board with paper. Whip the whites of eggs to a very stiff froth and stir in the sugar. Shape some of this mixture in a dessertspoon, scoop it out with another dessertspoon and lay it on the board, sift some castor sugar over each meringue and dry them well in a warm oven. Then turn them over, press in all the soft part underneath, and dry them again. If for immediate use, fill them with whipped cream sweetened and flavoured with vanilla. If not required at once, put them away in a tin box covered over with paper until they are wanted.
Pouding à l'Orléans.
Ingredients.
Half an ounce of Gelatine.
Half a pint of Milk.
The Yolks of four Eggs and one White.
Two ounces of Sugar.
Three ounces of Biscuit Crumbs.
Three ounces of Pine Apple.
Two ounces of dried Cherries.
One ounce of Angelica.
Flavour well according to taste.
Make the custard of the milk, eggs, and sugar, and let it cool. Melt the gelatine in a gill of milk, stir this to the custard, and add the cake crumbs; when nearly cold, add the fruits cut up, and pour it into a mould nicely decorated with pieces of pine-apple. When quite set, turn out and serve with chopped jelly round.
Princess Pudding or Cold
Two recipes run together here: plain meringue shells, and a moulded gelatine pudding that uses the yolks left over. The book assumes you will make them on the same afternoon, which is the sensible way to read it.
- Castor sugarSuperfine (caster) sugar, not powdered/icing sugar. Granulated will work if you pulse it briefly in a food processor, but it dissolves more slowly and can weep.
- The meringue boardA flat, rimless board on which the shells were laid out. A rimless baking sheet lined with parchment does the same job; the paper the book calls for was there to stop sticking, and parchment does it far better.
- "Dry them well in a warm oven"This is drying, not baking. In modern terms a very low oven, of the order of 200-225F, for an hour or more, with a further spell after hollowing; the book gives neither temperature nor time. Much above 250F the sugar browns and the shells lose their whiteness.
- Sugar ratioHalf a pound to four whites is roughly 2 oz (60 g) of sugar per white, the standard hard-meringue proportion. Add the sugar gradually once the whites hold a stiff peak, or the foam collapses.
- Shaping with two spoonsThe quenelle method: scoop with one dessertspoon, scrape off with the second onto the paper. A piping bag with a plain tube gives a neater result and the same volume.
- A gillA quarter of a pint, 5 fl oz in British measure (about two-thirds of a US cup). Used here to soften and melt the gelatine before it goes into the custard.
- Gelatine strengthHalf an ounce of gelatine of this period was reckoned to set roughly a pint of liquid. Modern powdered gelatine is generally stronger; about 2 teaspoons (7 g) should be enough for this quantity, and more will give a rubbery mould.
- The custardFour yolks and one white with milk and sugar, cooked over gentle heat to 175-180F and no further. If it boils it curdles, and there is no flour here to protect it.
- Angelica and dried cherriesAngelica is the candied green stem of Angelica archangelica, still sold by cake-decorating suppliers; candied citron peel is a common substitute. "Dried cherries" here most likely means glace or candied cherries rather than the modern tart dried sour cherry.
- Biscuit crumbsCrumbs of plain sponge or a dry sweet biscuit such as a Boudoir/ladyfinger, not digestive or graham. They swell in the custard and give the pudding body.
- Turning outChill the mould at least four hours. Dip briefly in hot water and invert. The "chopped jelly" around it is a set wine or fruit jelly cut up with a knife for sparkle.
- YieldFour whites will give roughly a dozen dessertspoon-sized shells, so about six filled pairs. The pudding will serve six or so depending on the mould; the book specifies neither.
Meringue and its offspring dominate this section because a Victorian or Edwardian kitchen generated whites and yolks in unequal numbers all day long, and one imagines a good cook was judged partly on wasting neither: the shells here use four whites, the pudding that follows uses the four yolks. The pairing may well not be a coincidence of the printer. Pouding a l'Orleans belongs to the long list of moulded, gelatine-set cold sweets named for French towns, princes and duchies that filled the sweet course of a formal dinner in the later nineteenth century and the years before the First World War; the names were largely decorative, and the same base of custard, gelatine, cake crumbs and candied fruit reappears under a dozen different titles across the period's cookery books. The word meringue is recorded in French by the end of the seventeenth century, in Massialot, though the technique of drying sweetened egg foam in a cooling bread oven is older than the name. The instruction to press in the soft underside and dry the shells a second time has a clear purpose: it produces a hollow crisp enough to hold whipped cream without going soggy, and to keep for days in a tin, which is exactly why the book tells you to do it before you know whether the cream is wanted.