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Meringue Shells
Whip the whites of four eggs to a stiff dry froth. Sift in one-half of a pound of sugar, cutting it in lightly. When done, the mass should be a stiff snow white froth. Drop by the tablespoonful or press through a pastry bag on stiff writing paper, which is laid on a thick oak plank. (If this is not obtainable, put an extra pan underneath, the object being to cook them as slowly as possible.) Have them fully two inches apart. Dust with sifted powdered sugar and place in a slow oven with the door partly open so that they will swell and cook very slowly. When a pale fawn color on top, take them out, run a sharp knife under each and lift them from the paper. Scoop out the soft interior and return them to the open oven until very dry.
A classic hard meringue, written before parchment paper and thermostats. The technique is sound; only the equipment and the oven language need translating.
- The hinge: low and slow, door ajarThese are dried rather than baked. "Slow oven" in period usage generally means somewhere in the 250-325F range, and with the door propped open as instructed the working temperature will sit well below that, around 200-225F, which is what you want. Anything hotter browns the sugar and cracks the shells before the interior sets.
- The oak plankThe plank is insulation, keeping direct heat off the bottoms in a fierce coal oven. Two stacked sheet pans do the same job, and in a modern oven a single heavy pan is usually enough.
- Stiff writing paperReplace with parchment. The instruction to run a knife under each shell exists because meringue sticks to writing paper; on parchment they lift cleanly once fully dry.
- Half a pound of sugarAbout one generous cup of granulated sugar, roughly 225 g. With four whites (about 120 g) that is the standard two-parts-sugar-to-one-part-white ratio for a meringue that holds its shape.
- Cutting in the sugarFolding a large quantity of sugar into already-stiff whites, as written, works but risks deflation and weeping. Beating the sugar in gradually once the whites hold soft peaks dissolves it more reliably; rub a little between your fingers and stop when you feel no grit.
- Pale fawn colourTake that literally as the outer limit; many modern recipes stop while the shells are still white, since colour means the sugar has begun to take on heat and the shell is more likely to soften.
- Scooping and re-dryingDo this while the shells are still warm and pliable; cold ones shatter. Returning them to the barely warm oven with the door open drives out the last moisture so they keep in a tin.
- YieldRoughly 18 to 24 shells by the tablespoon, fewer and larger from a pastry bag; the recipe gives no count. Hollowing them out implies they were intended to be filled, typically with whipped cream, ice cream or preserved fruit.
Meringue of this kind - egg white beaten with sugar and dried in a cooling bread oven - was well established in European confectionery by the eighteenth century, and the name is generally traced to French usage, though the origin of the word itself is disputed. What dates this version is the equipment: the oak plank and the sheet of writing paper are workarounds for a coal or wood range whose bottom heat could not be turned down, only blocked. In late nineteenth-century American cookbooks meringue shells were understood less as a cake than as a vessel, a crisp white shell to be filled with cream or fruit at the last minute, and it is reasonable to suppose they also used up the whites left over from the custards and boiled dressings that ate so many yolks in a Victorian kitchen.