[Sca-cooks] [OOP] Mrs. Beeton's Sifted Sugar

[Morgan Cain]

> I'm trying to recreate Apples in Red Jelly from
> Isabella Beeton's Book of Household Management,
> and she says to use 'sifted sugar'. What does she
> mean by that? I would automatically assume
> confectioners sugar, except that you're supposed
> to stuff it into baked apples which would be a
> waste of the powdery stuff. Maybe something like
> 'fine enough to pass through a sieve', which would
> mean caster or granulated?

Giano, remember that sugar can get lumpy if not stored airtight, and they
probably did not store things in that manner back then.  (Today, I have my
drygoods in screwtop jars; they didn't, but used bins or loosely-lidded
jars; I've done 19th-C reenactment as well.)  Think about having your brown
sugar dry out, and having to be softened or grated.  Or if you've ever lived
on a boat or in a damp climate, how the sugar clumps in the bowl.  So if the
sugar is lumpy, you have to sift it before use.

                                    ---= Morgan


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