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Meringued Pears
6 large pears
Candied ginger
6 tablespoons sugar
3 egg-whites
Grated lemon-rind
¼ cup powdered sugar
Pare and core the pears, place them in a baking-dish and fill the centers with one tablespoon sugar, a little grated lemon-rind or candied ginger . Add three or four tablespoons of water and bake until tender.
Cover them with a meringue made with the stiffly beaten whites of eggs and the sugar. Brown quickly.
GELATIN AND CREAM DESSERTS
A simple baked-pear dessert that depends almost entirely on the fruit and on how fast the meringue takes color. Two things in the original need translating: the oven, which is never named, and "powdered sugar," which did not mean what it means now.
- Powdered sugarIn American books of this period "powdered sugar" is finely milled granulated sugar — what is now sold as superfine or caster sugar. It is not modern confectioners' sugar, which contains cornstarch and will give a slightly chalky meringue.
- Oven temperaturesBake the pears at 350F until a knife slips in easily, roughly 30 to 45 minutes depending on ripeness and variety. "Brown quickly" means a hot oven, 425 to 450F, for 4 to 6 minutes — long enough to color the peaks, short enough that the meringue does not weep.
- Choice of pearFirm-fleshed varieties hold their shape: Bosc and Anjou are reliable. Bartletts at full ripeness will collapse into sauce around the sugar before the meringue ever goes on.
- Coring whole pearsThe recipe says only to pare and core and to fill the centers, which implies the pears are left whole; if so, they are hollowed from the base with an apple corer or a small knife, leaving the stem end intact. Halving them lengthwise and scooping the core is easier and bakes faster, though the presentation is less dramatic.
- The sugar in the cavitySix tablespoons of sugar divided among six pears is one per fruit, plus a quarter cup for the meringue. With three egg whites that is a fairly lean meringue; it will be soft and marshmallowy rather than crisp, which is what is wanted here.
- Candied gingerUse it chopped small, a scant teaspoon per pear.
- Water in the dishThree or four tablespoons is enough to keep the fruit from scorching and to make a light syrup with the escaping juices. Baste once or twice; if the dish runs dry, add another spoonful rather than letting the sugar catch.
- Meringue that stays putSpread the whites so they touch the rim of the pear or the surface of the dish at every point. Meringue anchored only to wet fruit slides off and shrinks as it bakes.
- YieldSix servings, one pear each. Best eaten within an hour of baking — a soft meringue over hot fruit begins to bead and weep as it stands.
- Stray line"GELATIN AND CREAM DESSERTS" at the end is a running head from the next section of the book, not part of the recipe.
Meringued fruit belongs to a family of late-Victorian and Edwardian desserts that made use of egg whites — useful in kitchens that were already separating eggs for custards and creams and had whites left over. The Butterick book, published by a pattern company for the same middle-class readership it sold dress patterns to, is full of this sort of economy: a whole pear becomes a company dish with a tablespoon of sugar and a swirl of white. The pairing of pear with ginger and lemon rind is older than the recipe, and candied ginger appears here as a casual alternative to lemon peel rather than the point of the dish.