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Kornettes
¾ cup finely chopped popped corn ¾ tablespoon soft butter White 1 egg 1/3 cup sugar Candied cherries ¼ teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon vanilla Blanched and chopped almonds Add butter to corn. Beat egg white until stiff, and add sugar gradually, continuing the beating. Combine mixtures; then add salt and vanilla. Drop mixture from tip of spoon on a well buttered sheet, one inch apart. Shape in circular form with case knife first dipped in cold water. Sprinkle with almonds and place a piece of candied cherry on the centre of each. Bake in a slow oven until delicately browned.
A meringue-bound popcorn drop cookie, closer to a macaroon than to anything in the gingerbread family. The batter is loose and sticky, and the shaping step matters more than the baking.
- The fractionsThe printed amounts are 3/4 cup chopped popped corn, 3/4 tablespoon soft butter, 1/3 cup sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla, with one egg white. Several of the fractions have lost their strokes in this printing.
- Slow ovenRead as roughly 300F, the low end of the range. These are meringues with popcorn in them: the aim is to dry them out and take on the faintest colour, not to bake them through in the ordinary sense. The recipe gives no time; watch them rather than trust a clock.
- Chopping the cornPop the corn first, discard unpopped kernels, then chop it fine with a knife or pulse briefly in a processor. Whole popped pieces will not hold together in so small a quantity of meringue.
- Butter and meringueThe soft butter is worked into the corn before the beaten white is folded in, which keeps fat out of direct contact with the meringue; fat added straight to a meringue slackens it. Fold the two together with a light hand and bake at once, as such mixtures tend to weep if left standing.
- Case knifeA case knife is an ordinary table knife, dull-edged. Dipping it in cold water keeps the sticky batter from dragging as you spread each mound into a round.
- The sheetWell buttered was the standard of the day; parchment is easier and these come away cleanly from it. If you butter a bare pan, lift them while still warm or they set fast.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; one egg white and 3/4 cup of corn will make only a small batch of drops. They soften in humid air within a day or so, so store airtight.