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Alpine Baskets
(Switzerland.) Make a mixture of whites of eggs and sugar as used for kisses and meringues, drop in large spoonfuls on buttered paper, set on a board and bake until yellow. If the spoonfuls have been given the right shape,--a pastry bag is the best thing to use,--the baskets, which must be scooped out of any soft part in the centre, will be a good shape. Stand them on end, let them dry, and fill with whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with a little cordial or vanilla. Drop small red strawberries over the tops.
A meringue shell filled with whipped cream and berries, written for cooks who already knew the standard "kisses" mixture and needed only the shaping. The whole thing hinges on drying rather than baking.
- The meringue itselfThe recipe assumes a standard "kisses" mixture; its proportions are not given here. A common ratio is about 1/4 cup fine sugar per egg white, beaten to stiff, glossy peaks. Add the sugar a spoonful at a time once the whites hold soft peaks, and keep beating until no grit remains when you rub a little between your fingers.
- "Bake until yellow" is a low, slow dry-out"Bake until yellow" points to a long, slow dry-out rather than a true bake. A modern oven at roughly 200-225F for two hours or more, until the shells lift cleanly from the paper and sound hollow, is one way to approximate it -- though note that at that temperature they will not take the colour the recipe actually asks for.
- Buttered paper and the boardParchment, unbuttered, serves in place of the buttered paper. The board underneath most likely acted as insulation against bottom heat; a doubled sheet pan or a pan set on an upper rack does the same job.
- Piping the shapeWith a large plain or star tip, pipe a flat spiral base about 3 inches across, then two or three rings around the rim to build a wall. The recipe itself directs scooping out any soft centre, which only works while the shell is still warm.
- "Stand them on end"This probably means turning the baked shells on their sides or edges so air reaches the underside as they finish drying. Leaving them in the switched-off oven with the door ajar for an hour does it more reliably.
- CordialIn a Swiss context this is most likely kirsch. One to two teaspoons per cup of cream, with a tablespoon of sugar, is enough; more liquid and the cream will slacken and soak the shells.
- Assembly and timingFill within an hour of serving. Unfilled shells keep a week in an airtight tin, but they draw moisture from cream and from humid air and go leathery quickly.
- YieldThree egg whites give roughly six to eight baskets of dessert size.
Meringue baskets of this kind belong to the Swiss and Austrian confectioner's repertoire, where a dried sugar-and-white shell is filled with sweetened cream. The name meringue is often traced to the town of Meiringen in the Bernese Oberland, a claim repeated for centuries and never documented; the earliest firm evidence is culinary rather than toponymic, in seventeenth-century French and English manuscript books describing sugared whites dried in a cool oven. What makes this a Swiss dish in the author's eyes is the filling: heavily whipped cream, a little cordial or vanilla, and small red strawberries.