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Allegretti Apples
4 red apples 2 egg whites 1 cup powdered sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla salt 2 squares bitter chocolate Wash and core apples and place in glass baking dish; half cover with cold water. Bake slowly, and when cool, cover with the following frosting: Beat the whites of eggs very stiff; add sugar, vanilla and a few grains of salt. Beat until very smooth. Pour over apples and after it is almost hard, pour melted bitter chocolate over it to make a coating. Serves 4.
A baked apple dressed as a confection: soft fruit, a stiff uncooked meringue-style icing, and a shell of unsweetened chocolate. The order and timing of the two coatings is what makes or breaks it.
- Oven temperature"Bake slowly" is not defined in the recipe; a slow oven is usually taken to mean somewhere around 300-325F. Whole cored apples in a shallow bath of water will likely need 45 minutes to an hour depending on variety and size; they should yield to a knife but still hold their shape, since a collapsed apple will not carry the frosting.
- Bitter chocolateTwo squares means 2 oz of unsweetened baking chocolate, sold then in 1-oz squares. It is aggressively bitter against a frosting that is almost pure sugar, which is the intended contrast; 60-70% dark chocolate is a milder substitute if you want one.
- Powdered sugarConfectioners' sugar, and modern boxes contain cornstarch, which is fine here. Sift it before beating in or the frosting will be gritty rather than "very smooth."
- The frosting is uncookedThis is a raw-white icing, not a cooked meringue or a boiled seven-minute frosting. Use pasteurized egg whites, sold in cartons, if it will be served to anyone elderly, pregnant, very young or immune-compromised.
- Timing the two coatsThe hinge of the recipe. The apples must be fully cool before frosting or the icing slumps, and the frosting must be set on the surface but not rock hard before the chocolate goes on, or the shell will slide off in one piece. Roughly 20 to 30 minutes at room temperature.
- Melted chocolate temperatureMelt over hot, not boiling, water and let it cool until barely warm to the touch. Hot chocolate poured straight onto a sugar-and-white frosting will dissolve it and run down the sides.
- The baking dish"Half cover with cold water" means water reaching about halfway up the apples; the amount will depend on the dish. It steams the fruit and keeps the skins from splitting; top up if it cooks dry.
- ServingFour servings, one apple each. Serve the day they are made, at room temperature; refrigeration weeps the icing and dulls the chocolate.