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Sugared Fruits
Beat the white of the egg just enough to break, then dip fine stems of cherries or currants into the egg and then into powdered sugar, and dry on a sieve.
Frosted fruit of this kind is eaten exactly as it is made: the egg white is never heated at any stage, and the drying is done at room temperature. That is the whole problem with the method as written.
- The egg is never cookedThe white goes on raw and stays raw. Nothing in the process — beating, dipping, air-drying on a sieve — reaches a temperature that would destroy Salmonella, which can be present in the white as well as the yolk.
- Drying is not a kill stepA thin coating left to dry on a sieve sits at room temperature for a prolonged period, in the range where bacteria multiply. Air-drying reduces water activity slowly and unevenly here, and does not sterilise.
- The fruit itselfCherries and currants are eaten unpeeled and are handled by the stem while wet with egg. Any contamination on the shell of the egg transfers directly to a surface that will never be washed again.
- If you want frosted fruitUse a current recipe that specifies pasteurised egg white or another binder, with proper handling and storage instructions. Do not adapt this one by eye.
Frosted or "sugared" fruit belongs to the Victorian dessert table rather than the Victorian dinner — a garnish for a charlotte, a jelly, or a centrepiece of grapes and currants meant to look frosted with hoar. The trick is old: egg white as a glue for sugar appears in English confectionery manuals well before the nineteenth century, in the same family of techniques as royal icing and gum-paste work, and it needed no equipment beyond a fork and a sieve. The Home Cook Book (Toronto, 1877) was a community compilation of contributed receipts, and short ornamental items like this one sat among more substantial cooking — a reminder that a hostess of the period was expected to make her table look like something as well as feed it.