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Peach Fluff
2 egg-whites
1 cup sugar
1 cup thick cream
4 cups sliced peaches
Add half the sugar to the cream, stir until the sugar is dissolved, and then add the whites of the eggs beaten stiff. Place the sliced peaches in a dish, sprinkle them with the remainder of the sugar, pour on the cream mixture, and serve at once. The success of this depends upon its being thoroughly chilled when served. The cream, eggs and fruit should be placed on ice at least two hours before the dish is to be prepared, and the latter should be sent to the table as quickly as possible, being kept in the ice-box until needed.
Apple fluff or berry fluff may be made in the same way.
A three-minute uncooked dessert from the era of the domestic icebox, built on raw egg whites folded into sweetened cream. The technique is sound and the flavour is good, but the egg is never heated at any point, which is why the caution above stands.
- Why this one failsThe beaten whites are folded in raw and the dish goes straight to the table. Uncooked shell eggs carry a risk of Salmonella, which is not reduced by beating, by sugar, or by two hours on ice; chilling only slows bacterial growth. A current recipe for an uncooked fruit fool or mousse should be used instead.
- Chilling is not a controlThe original treats thorough chilling as the guarantee of success, and in this period that meant flavour and texture — cream that has warmed goes flat and the foam collapses. It was never a food-safety measure and should not be read as one.
- "Thick cream"In this period that means unhomogenised cream skimmed rich, broadly comparable to modern heavy or double cream. It is stirred, not whipped: the loft comes entirely from the egg whites.
- The sugar is split for a reasonHalf dissolves into the cream, half goes onto the fruit to draw out juice. Four cups of sliced peaches with half a cup of sugar is sweet by current taste, and ripe fruit needs considerably less.
- YieldFour cups of fruit with a cup of cream will serve about six. There is no gelatin here, so it will not hold — it separates into juice and foam quite quickly, which is why the original insists on serving at once.
- The variationsApple fluff may have used stewed and sifted apple rather than raw slices, though the original only says "in the same way"; berry fluff works with raspberries or crushed strawberries. All three share the same uncooked-egg problem.
"Fluff" was one of a family of late-Victorian and Edwardian desserts — fools, snows, whips, sponges — that all solved the same problem: how to make something impressive out of fruit and dairy without a stove. The instruction to put cream, eggs and fruit "on ice at least two hours" before assembly assumes a cold store the previous generation did not have. Peaches suited it perfectly, being a high-summer fruit that was cheap and abundant for a few weeks and unimprovable by cooking.