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Glacé Cherries and Angelica
Meringue mixture for covering.
Separate the whites of eggs from the yolks, put the yolks into a basin with the sugar, work it for fifteen minutes with a wooden spoon, beat the whites to a stiff froth, add the ground almonds and orange-flower water to the yolks and sugar.
Melt the butter, sift the flour, and mix both gradually with the cornflour, whites of eggs and the creamed yolks, etc. Fill in a well-buttered plain pudding mould, bake in a well-heated oven for about half an hour. Turn it out on a sieve and allow it to cool a little. Cut off the top, scoop out some of the soft part of the centre, and fill the opening with some well-drained stewed apricots, peaches or any other kind of soft fruit; arrange the top so as to form a dome with the fruit (the fruit may be sprinkled over with some maraschino liquor after it is put in the centre of the cake). Have ready a meringue mixture made with three whites of eggs and two ounces of castor sugar. Spread this evenly over the top so as to cover the fruit and the sides. Put some of the mixture into a forcing-bag or paper cornet, and ornament according to taste. Garnish with some glacé cherries and angelica, put it in the oven just long enough to get hot through and to set the meringuage. This dish can be hot or cold.
This entry gives the method but not the ingredient list for the cake itself — it clearly follows on from a preceding recipe in the book, and only the meringue is quantified here. Read the whole thing before starting and expect to supply your own sponge proportions.
- The missing quantitiesEggs, sugar, ground almonds, butter, flour and cornflour are all named without amounts. A workable base for a mould of this type is 4 eggs, 4 oz castor sugar, 2 oz ground almonds, 2 oz butter, 2 oz flour and 1 oz cornflour, but that is a reconstruction, not the book's figure.
- "Well-heated oven"The book gives no temperature; for a half-hour bake in a plain pudding mould something in the region of 350-375F is a reasonable modern guess, and no more than that. Hotter and the outside sets before the centre, which matters because the centre is going to be hollowed out.
- Fifteen minutes with a wooden spoonThis is the yolk-and-sugar stage, worked to a pale ribbon. A stand mixer will do it in a few minutes on high; since no raising agent is named, this aeration and the whipped whites are all the lift the cake gets, so do not cut it short.
- Folding orderButter and flour are folded into whites and yolks together, which deflates easily. Add the melted butter last and only just combined — a heavy fold here is the difference between a sponge that domes and one that stays flat.
- Orange-flower water and maraschinoOrange-flower water is still sold in Middle Eastern groceries and pharmacies; it is potent, so a teaspoon is plenty. Maraschino here means the dry Italian cherry liqueur, not the syrup from a jar of cocktail cherries.
- CornflourBritish cornflour is American cornstarch, not cornmeal. It lightens the crumb and keeps the cut sponge from crumbling when you scoop the centre.
- Setting the meringue"just long enough to get hot through" means a brief spell in a hot oven, minutes rather than longer. Three whites to 2 oz sugar is a lightly sugared, soft meringue; it colours fast and will weep if held, so pipe and set it close to serving.
- AngelicaCandied angelica stem, the green ribbon used with glacé cherries, is now hard to find outside specialist confectioners. Candied citron peel or thin strips of candied lime peel stand in for the colour and bite.
- YieldThe book gives no mould size, so servings depend on what you use; a mould of a pint and a half or so, filled and domed with fruit, would feed several. The book's note that it can be served hot or cold is worth taking literally -- cold, it firms enough to slice cleanly.
This is the family of dishes served as a surprise: a sponge baked in a mould, hollowed, filled with fruit or ice, masked in meringue and flashed through the oven. The glacé cherries and angelica of the title are a standard late-Victorian garnish pair, red and green, and they recur frequently in cookery of the period. The book's silence on the cake's quantities suggests a reader expected to have the sponge method already and to need only the assembly.