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Meringues and Macaroons: Shape
Mushroom Meringues Force Meringue mixture through pastry bag and plain tube in rounds one and one half inches in diameter, for mushroom caps. Shape stems three fourths inch in diameter and one to one and one half inches high.
Sprinkle all with grated chocolate or cocoa, rubbing it gently on with the finger. Bake in a slow oven, remove paper, and place caps on stems. Turkey Meringues Shape meringue mixture on paper with pastry bag and rose tube in the shape of turkeys. Shape the spread tail first on the paper, in front of tail shape the body, building it up in circles and shaping the head last. Bake, remove from paper, and scoop out soft part, dry in oven, fill with ice cream, stand in a nest of green spun sugar, and serve. Nut Meringues To either recipe for Meringues add half a cup of chopped nut meats of any kind, and one fourth teaspoon of salt. Drop from tip of spoon, or force through pastry bag and plain tube, on tin sheet covered with a sheet of paper. Sprinkle with nut meats, and bake like meringues.
Cocoanut Meringues Whites 2 eggs 1/2 cup fine granulated sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla Few grains salt 1/2 cup cocoanut shredded Beat whites of eggs until very stiff, add slowly vanilla and one fourth cup sugar, continuing the beating. Fold in remaining sugar, salt, and cocoanut. Shape with spoon or with pastry bag and tube on tin sheet covered with paper, and bake thirty minutes in slow oven.
Praline Kisses 3/4 cup almonds 2 tablespoons water 1/4 cup sugar Whites 2 eggs 2/3 cup powdered sugar 1/4 teaspoon vanilla 1/8 teaspoon salt Blanch almonds, finely shred three eighths cup, and dry slowly in the oven. Put water and sugar in small omelet pan, stir until it boils, add remaining almonds, and cook until the syrup is golden brown. Turn into a pan, cool, and force through meat grinder.
Beat whites of eggs until stiff, add powdered sugar slowly, continuing the beating, then fold in both shredded and ground almonds, vanilla, and salt. Shape in cones on a tin sheet covered with paper. Sift sugar over them, and bake in slow oven twenty-five minutes.
Cocoanut Cakes 1 fresh cocoanut 2 tablespoons corn syrup 7 tablespoons sugar White 1 egg Grate sufficient fresh cocoanut to make two cups. This will take about half a cocoanut. Put with corn syrup and sugar in top of double boiler, and stir and cook until mixture clings to spoon. Add white of egg, and cook until mixture feels sticky when tried between the fingers. Spread in a wet pan, cover with wet paper, and cool; then chill by setting pan on ice in the refrigerator. Shape into balls, first dipping the hands in cold water. If one and one half tablespoons of mixture are used for each, ten cakes can be made. Heat a tin sheet slightly, and rub over with white wax, paraffin, or olive oil. Place balls on the sheet, and bake in a slow oven about twenty minutes. Cornettes Popped corn White 1 egg 1/3 cup sugar 3/4 tablespoon butter 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon vanilla Candied cherries Chopped almonds Chop sufficient popped corn to make three fourths cup. Beat white of egg until stiff, and add gradually sugar, butter,--softened but not melted,--salt, and vanilla. Fold in popped corn, drop from teaspoon on buttered sheet, and shape in circular forms with a fork dipped in cold water. Place a piece of candied cherry in the center of each, sprinkle with finely chopped almonds, and bake in a slow oven until delicately browned.
Baked Peanut Candy 1 quart peanuts White 1 egg 1 cup brown sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon vanilla Shell one quart peanuts or use one cup shelled peanuts; remove skins, and put through coarse meat grinder. Beat white of egg until light; add slowly while beating constantly brown sugar, salt, and vanilla.
Fold in the ground peanuts, drop from tip of spoon on buttered tin sheet, and bake in a slow oven.
A set of variations built on one basic meringue plus a few egg-white confections that behave more like candy than cookie. Almost everything here hinges on the oven being cooler than you think.
- "Slow oven" means 275-300F"Slow oven" is roughly 275-325F -- The book gives no figure. For meringue that stays white and dries through rather than browning, work at the low end, around 275-300F; the cocoanut meringues at thirty minutes and the praline kisses at twenty-five suit that range, and at 350F they will colour before the centres set.
- Paper means parchmentThe "sheet of paper" laid on a tin sheet was ordinary kitchen or baking paper, used so the shapes could be peeled off. Parchment does the job better and the instruction to "remove paper" becomes trivial.
- White wax and paraffinThe cocoanut cakes call for greasing a warmed sheet with white wax, paraffin or olive oil, because meringue-candy mixtures weld themselves to bare tin. Use parchment or a silicone mat instead; there is no reason to melt wax onto a baking sheet.
- Cocoanut"Grate sufficient fresh cocoanut to make two cups" means fresh coconut meat, which is wetter and less sweet than packaged sweetened flake. Unsweetened desiccated or frozen grated coconut is the nearest substitute; if you use sweetened flake, cut the sugar.
- Omelet pan and meat grinderThe "small omelet pan" for the praline syrup is just a small heavy skillet. The praline is poured out, cooled hard, then "forced through a meat grinder" to crush it; a few pulses in a food processor gives the same coarse grit.
- Three eighths cupThree eighths of a cup is 6 tablespoons; the remaining almonds, roughly 6 more tablespoons of the original three quarters cup, go into the caramel.
- The mushroom trickThe caps and stems bake separately and are joined afterwards, so both must be fully dry or the joint collapses. Dust with cocoa or grated chocolate before baking, not after, as the recipe says, so the colour bakes in.
- Turkey meringues are a shell, not a meringueThe shaped bird is baked, hollowed, dried again, then filled with ice cream at the last moment. Assemble no more than a few minutes before serving; meringue starts weeping as soon as ice cream touches it.
- YieldThe cocoanut meringue recipe on two egg whites gives roughly 18-24 small shapes; the cocoanut cakes are specified at ten. The nut meringues and baked peanut candy are dropped by the spoon and will make two to three dozen depending on size.
Meringue work of this kind belongs to a period when confectionery was expected to amuse as much as feed, and a reader with a pastry bag and a set of tubes might spend an afternoon piping turkeys for a Thanksgiving table, complete with a nest of green spun sugar. The later items drift away from meringue altogether: cocoanut cakes are a cooked candy paste that is merely finished in the oven, and the baked peanut candy and cornettes use a single egg white as a cheap binder for popcorn and peanuts.