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Rainbow Loaf Dessert
2 tablespoons gelatine 4 tablespoons cold water 20 marshmallows 1/2 cup boiling water 1 cup sugar 4 egg whites, beaten stiff Soften gelatine in the cold water. Add marshmallows and boiling water to gelatine and dissolve over boiling water. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Cool, stirring continually, and add the stiffly beaten egg whites. Divide into portions, coloring each portion with vegetable coloring, and flavor to taste. Place colors in layers in a bread pan, so that loaf will slice like brick ice cream, when cold. Add grated cocoanut to that portion saved for the top layer. Chill well. Serves 6.
This is a gelatine-and-meringue loaf of a type common in the 1930s, but its structure depends on stiffly beaten egg whites that are folded into an already-cooled mixture and then only chilled. Nothing in the method brings the eggs to a safe temperature.
- The egg whites are never cookedThe gelatine, marshmallows and sugar are dissolved over boiling water, then explicitly cooled before the whites go in. From that point the loaf is only refrigerated, so the four egg whites remain raw from mixing to serving.
- Why that mattersShell eggs can carry Salmonella on the shell and, less often, within the white and yolk. Raw whites are not acidic, salty or alcoholic enough to control it, and refrigeration only slows growth. The recipe directs no heating of the whites at any stage.
- Gelatine is not a safeguardSetting agents do nothing to pathogens. The loaf's firm, sliceable body comes from gelatine and whipped protein alone.
- Marshmallows have changedMarshmallows may have changed -- Commercial marshmallows are counted here by the piece, and their size and density cannot be assumed to match those sold now, so reckoning the sugar and gelatine the original supplied is approximate.
- Colouring and flavouring"Vegetable coloring" is not a precise term, and some colourants sold in this period are no longer permitted in food. Modern certified food colours should not be assumed to match in strength or hue.
- If you want the dishUse a current recipe for a layered gelatine dessert built on pasteurised egg white or on whipped cream, written with the quantities and handling temperatures the method requires.
History: Loaf desserts moulded in a bread pan and sliced "like brick ice cream" gave the look of a confectioner's brick without an ice-cream freezer, and the comparison is to shape rather than to a frozen dessert -- this loaf is only chilled. Marshmallow was a convenient ingredient in books of this kind because it supplied gelatine, sugar and body in one store-bought unit.