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Meringues with Candied Cherries
Place upon paper, tacked to a board, large spoonfuls of meringue; then sift a little sugar over the top and set in a moderate oven for forty minutes. Scoop out the centers and return to the oven to dry. Before serving pass a hot skewer through each, and tie in pairs with ribbon. Fill with whipped cream, adding a cherry here and there.
A shell recipe that assumes you already know how to beat a meringue — the book gives shaping and drying only. Two things need translating: the oven and the paper.
- The missing baseNo proportions are given. A standard ratio is roughly 1/4 cup (about 2 oz) caster sugar per egg white, beaten to stiff, glossy peaks. A pinch of cream of tartar or a few drops of lemon juice stabilises the foam.
- "A moderate oven" is too hot here"A moderate oven" is likely too hot here -- "moderate" is conventionally read as somewhere around 350F, though the book itself gives no figures; that heat would brown and crack meringues in far less than forty minutes. The intent is drying, not baking; modern practice holds shells at 200-225F for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, then leaves them in the turned-off oven to finish.
- Paper tacked to a boardKitchen paper pinned to a plank gave the period a non-stick surface on a rigid support, and would also have kept the bases off a fierce range floor. Parchment on a heavy baking sheet does the same job; a doubled sheet if your oven runs hot underneath.
- Scooping the centresDo this while the shells are still warm and only just set, with the tip of a small spoon. Once cold and fully dry they shatter. Returning the hollowed shells to the oven drives out the damp interior so they keep crisp.
- The hot skewerHeated metal melts a clean hole through the sugar without cracking the shell; this is how you thread the ribbon that ties the pairs. A cold skewer is far more likely to crack them. Warm it over a burner, not in water.
- Filling and timingWhipped cream softens a meringue within an hour or so. Fill at the last moment, and keep the empty shells in an airtight tin, where they hold for a week.
- Candied cherriesThe title's "candied" most likely means glace cherries, sugar-preserved and firm, rather than maraschinos. Rinse off surface syrup and dry them or they will weep into the cream.
- HumidityMeringue is hygroscopic. On a damp day the shells will stay tacky no matter how long they sit in the oven; choose a dry day or accept a chewy centre.
- YieldThe recipe specifies no quantity. Working from four egg whites, large spoonfuls give about 12 shells, or six tied pairs -- six servings.
Meringue reached English and American cookbooks from France in the eighteenth century, and by the 1890s the hollowed shell filled with whipped cream was standard confectioners' work, sold as meringues chantilly. What marks this version as of its moment is the ribbon: turn-of-the-century household books are full of food dressed for the table as much as for the palate, with paper frills, tied bows and candied fruit standing in for the elaborate sugar work a professional pastry kitchen could manage and a home cook could not. Candied cherries were an imported luxury that kept well in the store cupboard, which is why they turn up as decoration in so many recipes of the period regardless of season.