[Sca-cooks] Period Peeps?

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Apr 8, 2007, at 11:01 PM, Robin Carroll-Mann wrote:

> Susan Fox wrote:
>
>> Memoria de Melindres flavors egg white and sugar with
>> almonds and recommends you shape them as spirals.  The learned  
>> Brighid
>> seemed to have a tough time shaping them, from her report.
>> [http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-SWEETS/candy-msg.html]
>>
>>
> The frustrated Brighid went through vast quantities of eggs, and  
> nearly
> tore her hair out.  I'd love to see someone with more confectionery
> experience tackle this one.

Upon looking at the recipe again, it seems like this is basically  
Royal Icing with ground almonds. I'd beat the eggs to soft peaks, or  
stiff but not dry, then use some easily soluble sugar (such as bar  
sugar or other superfine without starch).

Okay, some stupid questions that probably aren't issues, but might  
be. Is a pound sixteen modern ounces in this case? Again, what kind  
of sugar did you use? Ideally, you should be allowing each increment  
of added sugar to dissolve in the egg whites (eventually, it's  
probably icing rather than egg whites) before adding more.

Come to think of it, I wonder how much you need to beat the egg  
white: probably the almond oil will cause a lot of the aeration to  
fall out/collapse anyway. Some royal Icing recipes don't even call  
for the egg whites to be beaten, either; you just stir in the sugar  
in increments so it dissolves fully before the next batch is added.

Eventually, you will reach a point where no more sugar will dissolve  
in the mass, but it would take a lot if done right...

Certainly, as Phlip suggests, freshness isn't going to hurt.

Adamantius





"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread, you have to say, let them eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

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