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Kornettes
1 egg-white
¾ cup chopped popcorn
⅓ cup light brown sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons butter
½ teaspoon vanilla
Beat the white of the egg very stiff and, still beating, mix in the sugar, Melt the butter and into this stir the chopped popcorn, salt and vanilla. Fold the two mixtures together and drop by spoonfuls on a greased baking-sheet. Bake at 350° for fifteen minutes.
A popcorn meringue drop, and one of the few recipes in books of this vintage that already gives a number for the oven. The mixture is small and comes together in minutes, so have the popcorn popped and chopped before you beat the white.
- The hinge: chop the popcorn dryChop popped corn on a board with a heavy knife, or pulse briefly, until the pieces are roughly pea-sized. Whole flakes will not bind in so little meringue and the drops fall apart on the sheet.
- Measuring popcornThree-quarters of a cup of chopped popcorn is more corn than it sounds: start with about 2 cups popped, which is roughly a tablespoon of unpopped kernels. Use plain air-popped corn, unbuttered and unsalted, since the recipe supplies both.
- Butter and meringueMelted butter deflates egg white on contact. Let it cool until barely warm, stir the corn through it, then fold rather than stir the two mixtures together and bake at once.
- Beating the white"Very stiff" means stiff peaks before the sugar goes in; the recipe then has you beat the brown sugar in while still beating, best done a spoonful at a time until the meringue is glossy. Brown sugar carries more moisture than white and tends to give a softer meringue, which probably accounts for the chewier texture.
- Oven and pan350°F is right as printed, but line the sheet with parchment instead of greasing it; a greased tin makes sugary meringue spread and stick. Fifteen minutes gives a set, lightly coloured drop that firms as it cools.
- YieldAbout 15 to 18 small drops from one egg white. They soften within a day in humid weather, so store them airtight and eat them soon.
Popcorn was cheap, American and abundant, and turn-of-the-century cookbooks put it in balls with molasses, strung it for trees, and folded it into sweets like this one. The name looks like a manufactured one, "corn" plus the diminutive -ette, of a kind that turns up in confectionery names of the period. The sugar is modest — a third of a cup for a whole egg white — which reads less like a rich confection than a way of using up popped corn and a spare white.