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Cherry Sponge
Soak 1/2 of a box of gelatine in 1/2 of a cupful of cold water. Pit 1 quart of stemmed cherries, steep the pits in 1 cupful of hot water for half an hour, then strain. Add to the water 1 cupful of sugar, bring to the boiling point and boil for three minutes. Pour over the cherries, cover and let stand for ten minutes then press all through a colander. Dissolve the gelatine over hot water, add to the cherry mixture and set away until it begins to thicken. Add the wellbeaten whites of 3 eggs and beat on ice until all is thick and light. Turn into a wetted mold and set in a cold place until firm.
This is a gelatin "sponge" " a fruit jelly lightened with beaten egg white " and two things in it put it outside modern practice: the egg whites are never cooked, and the flavour comes from cherry pits.
- Raw egg white, never heatedThe whites go into a mixture that is only warm at most and is then chilled to set. Nothing in the method brings them to a temperature that would deal with Salmonella, and the finished sponge sits in a cold place for hours, which does nothing to make it safer. Period cooks accepted this risk; a current recipe using pasteurised whites or a cooked meringue base should be used instead.
- The cherry pitsThe almond-like flavour here is drawn from the stones, whose kernels contain amygdalin and can release cyanide when the kernel is broken and wetted. Whole, uncracked pits steeped briefly give up very little, which is why the practice survived; the risk rises only if stones are cracked or crushed. Almond extract supplies the same flavour without the question arising.
- No cooking step at allUnlike a boiled custard or a cooked fruit jelly, nothing in this dessert is ever held at temperature. The sugar syrup is boiled, but it is poured over raw fruit and then cooled, so it sanitises nothing.
- What "1/2 of a box of gelatine" meantBoxes of granulated gelatine of the period commonly held around an ounce, which would make half a box roughly two modern envelopes, about two level tablespoons; box sizes were not standardised, so treat this as an approximation. The same shorthand appears in other recipes of the era.
- "Beat on ice"The bowl was set over ice so the gelatin thickened while it was being whipped, trapping air before it set. This is the technique that makes a sponge rather than a jelly.
- YieldA quart of cherries pressed through a colander, plus the syrup and three beaten whites, fills a good-sized mould; the recipe itself states no yield or number of servings.
Gelatin "sponges," "whips" and "snows" are common in American cookbooks from the late nineteenth century onward, and part of the reason is economic: granulated gelatine sold in prepared boxes removed the long job of boiling down calves' feet, and a few egg whites beaten in stretched a quart of fruit further. Flavouring a cherry dish with its own pits is much older than packet gelatine " the same principle as noyau, the French cordial made by steeping stone-fruit kernels, and as the ratafia biscuits and almond-scented cherry preserves of English cookery. Cooks understood the pits carried the flavour of bitter almond and used them freely.