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Fancy Cakes and Confections (Cocoanut Cakes 1 lb fresh)
Cocoanut Cakes I 1/2 lb. fresh grated cocoanut Whites 1½ eggs 6 ozs. sugar and glucose, using one mixing-spoon glucose
This is a confectioner's proportion list rather than a worked recipe: quantities only, no method, and one measure that cannot be pinned down. It belongs to the family of coconut macaroons made from a cooked meringue paste.
- The quantity is contradictoryThe quantity is ambiguous -- the line reads "Cocoanut Cakes I 1/2 lb. fresh grated cocoanut," which may be recipe number I followed by 1/2 lb., or a single quantity of 1 1/2 lb. Nothing in the text settles which.
- "One mixing-spoon glucose"This is a shop measure, not a household one, and there is no reliable modern equivalent; a confectioner's mixing-spoon was larger than a tablespoon, but no fixed size can be given. The wording suggests the glucose is taken from the total of 6 oz sweetener, the rest being granulated sugar.
- Glucose is corn syrupConfectioners' glucose was used to keep sugar from crystallising and to hold moisture in the finished cake. Light corn syrup is the direct substitute; honey is not, since it browns far faster.
- Fresh grated cocoanut is not packaged flakeFresh coconut is wet and unsweetened. Sweetened flaked coconut adds sugar the formula does not allow for and is much drier; unsweetened desiccated coconut, moistened slightly, is the closer stand-in.
- The sugar looks low because the mixture is cookedThe sugar looks low because the mixture is probably cooked -- Six ounces of sugar to twelve whites is well below the usual meringue proportion. Coconut macaroons of this trade type were commonly made by stirring whites, sugar and glucose with the coconut over hot water until the mass thickened, then forming and baking, though this recipe gives no method.
- OvenNo temperature or oven term is given anywhere in the entry; the method was left to the reader. Cakes of this kind are usually baked at a low to moderate heat, just until set.
- YieldOn the 1/2 lb. reading, twelve whites would give roughly three to four dozen small cakes; if the quantity is 1 1/2 lb. the yield is correspondingly larger.
Coconut macaroons descend from the older almond macaroon, a nut-and-egg-white confection generally traced to Italian and French convent baking, which reached English and American kitchens well before coconut was cheap. Fresh coconut became a staple of American fancy baking in the later nineteenth century; Fannie Farmer's era spelled it "cocoanut," a form that persisted on packaging into the twentieth century. The presence of glucose and a "mixing-spoon" measure marks this entry as trade practice - confectionery chapters of such volumes often set down professional proportions with the method left to the reader's experience.