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Twelve Whites of Eggs
Whip the whites stiffly and mix as for meringues.
Then put the mixture into a bag having a funnel about the size of a sixpence; press the meringue on to a greased tin in narrow finger-shaped pieces.
Sprinkle with pink sugar and chopped almonds, and bake in a slow oven until crisp. Remove very carefully on to a sieve, and serve cold with ices as for dessert.
A recipe that assumes you already know the meringue ratio and that you have twelve spare whites because the yolks went into the custard for the ices. The whole thing hinges on drying rather than baking.
- The missing sugarThe original gives no quantity, presumably because a proportion was taken for granted: something in the region of 2 oz of caster sugar per white, which would give about 1 lb 8 oz (680 g) for twelve. Half whisked in a spoonful at a time to a stiff glossy meringue, half folded through at the end.
- "A slow oven" here means very slowSlow oven is conventionally read as somewhere around 300F, but crisp white meringue fingers want 200-250F (95-120C) for 1 to 1.5 hours, with the door propped slightly if your oven runs damp. At 300F they are likely to colour before the centres dry.
- The bag and the "funnel"The funnel is the piping nozzle. A sixpence measured about 19 mm across, so a plain round tip of roughly 1/2 to 3/4 inch (12-18 mm). Pipe fingers about 3 inches long, well spaced.
- Grease, then don'tA greased tin was the usual Victorian answer; greased metal alone still sticks, which is probably why the recipe tells you to lift them "very carefully". Bake on parchment or a silicone mat and the removal problem disappears.
- Pink sugarGranulated sugar tinted with cochineal and dried, sold or made in the house. Coarse sanding sugar with a drop of food colour, rubbed through the fingers and spread to dry, gives the same effect.
- AlmondsFinely chopped blanched almonds, not flaked and not ground; scatter them with the sugar the moment the fingers are piped, while the surface is still tacky.
- Cooling and storingOnto a sieve or wire rack, as directed, so air reaches the undersides; a solid plate traps steam and softens them. Once cold they keep a week in an airtight tin and lose crispness fast in a humid kitchen.
- YieldTwelve whites make a great deal - on the order of 50 to 70 fingers. For a household batch, quarter the recipe: three whites and 6 oz sugar.
Meringue fingers of this sort are a byproduct of a professional kitchen's economy. Iced puddings, custards, pastry creams and rich sauces all ate yolks by the dozen, hence a recipe titled by its leftover, "Twelve Whites of Eggs", rather than by the thing it makes. The technique is generally traced to French confectionery, with printed recipes appearing by the end of the seventeenth century, and by the late Victorian period piped meringue in narrow lengths - the meringue baton - was served alongside ices, where something dry and crisp offsets the cold cream. The pink sugar is period taste: cochineal-tinted sugar and chopped almonds were part of the ordinary decorative vocabulary of the dessert table.