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Cocoanut Balls
Mrs. Kruckman.
Whip the white of an egg stiff, stir in enough confectioner's sugar to make a smooth paste. Add enough cocoanut to readily roll with the hands. Knead until the cocoanut is thoroughly mixed with the sugar, make into little balls, and again roll in cocoanut.
Mrs. Kruckman.
This is an uncooked confection built on raw egg white, and nothing in the method brings it to a temperature that would make it safe. The notes below explain the problem and clarify the period vocabulary.
- The egg is never cookedThe white is whipped and bound with sugar, then rolled and served. There is no baking, no syrup poured in hot, no drying at heat. Salmonella can be present inside an intact shell egg, and sugar at this concentration does not reliably kill it. Use a current recipe if you want coconut balls.
- Storage makes it worseStorage - if these are held at room temperature rather than eaten at once, the raw egg protein remains a hazard, particularly for children, the elderly, or anyone pregnant or immunocompromised.
- "Cocoanut"The older spelling, standard in American cookbooks well into the early twentieth century. It may mean either freshly grated coconut or the packaged desiccated shredded coconut sold from the late nineteenth century under brand names such as Dunham's and Baker's.
- Confectioner's sugarThe same product as today's powdered or icing sugar, though period versions were often coarser and were sometimes sifted with a little starch. "Enough to make a smooth paste" is the only measure given, which is typical of brief community-cookbook candy recipes.
- No yield givenOne egg white with sugar and coconut to a workable paste makes roughly two dozen small balls, depending on how tightly they are rolled. The recipe assumes the cook will judge by feel rather than weight.
Coconut balls belong to the same family of work as icings and fillings: a stiff-beaten white loaded with confectioner's sugar is the basis of the uncooked icings, of fondant patties, and of the little rolled sweets that filled candy dishes at Christmas. Desiccated coconut was what made them possible. Packaged shredded coconut had been sold since the late nineteenth century, cheap and shelf-stable, and it turned a tropical ingredient into something as ordinary as raisins. Community cookbooks of this period are full of no-cook candies contributed under a single name, as here with Mrs. Kruckman, and their brevity is the point: they are aides-memoire for cooks who already knew the technique, not instructions for beginners.