MERINGUE OF PEARS, OR OTHER FRUIT.
Fill a deep tart-dish nearly to the brim with stewed pears, and let them be something more than half covered with their juice. Whisk to a solid froth the whites of five eggs; stir to them five tablespoonsful of dry sifted sugar, and lay them lightly and equally over the fruit; put the meringue immediately into a moderate oven, and bake it half an hour. Cherries, bullaces, and damsons, with various other kinds of plums, first either stewed as for compôtes (see page [457]), or baked with sugar, as for winter use, answer as well as pears for this dish; which may, likewise, be made of apples, peaches, apricots, or common plums boiled down quite to a marmalade, with sufficient sugar to sweeten them moderately: the skins and stones of these last should be removed, but a few of the blanched kernels may be added to the fruit.
Dish filled with stewed pears or other fruit; whites of eggs, 5; pounded sugar, 5 tablespoonsful: baked, 1/2 hour.
AN APPLE CHARLOTTE, OR CHARLOTTE DE POMMES.
Butter a plain mould (a round or square cake-tin will answer the purpose quite well), and line it entirely with thin slices of the crumb of a stale loaf, cut so as to fit into it with great exactness, and dipped into clarified butter. When this is done, fill the mould to the brim with apple marmalade; cover the top with slices of bread dipped in butter, and on these place a dish, a large plate, or the cover of a French stewpan with a weight upon it. Send the Charlotte to a brisk oven for three quarters of an hour should it be small, and for an hour if large. Turn it out with great care, and serve it hot. If baked in a slack oven it will not take a proper degree of colour, and it will be liable to break in the dishing. The strips of bread must of course join very perfectly, for if any spaces were left between them the syrup of the fruit would escape and destroy the good appearance of the dish: should there not have been sufficient marmalade prepared to fill the mould entirely, a jar of quince or apricot jam, or of preserved cherries even, may be added to it with advantage. The butter should be well drained from the Charlotte before it is taken from the mould; and sugar may be sifted thickly over it before it is served, or it may be covered with any kind of clear red jelly.
A more elegant, and we think an easier mode of forming the crust, is to line the mould with small rounds of bread stamped out with a plain cake or paste cutter, then dipped in butter, and placed with the edges sufficiently one over the other to hold the fruit securely: the strips of bread are sometimes arranged in the same way.
3/4 to 1 hour, quick oven.
MARMALADE FOR THE CHARLOTTE.
Weigh three pounds of good boiling apples, after they have been pared, cored, and quartered; put them into a stewpan with six ounces of fresh butter, three quarters of a pound of sugar beaten to powder, three quarters of a teaspoonful of pounded cinnamon, and the strained juice of a lemon; let these stew over a gentle fire, until they form a perfectly smooth and dry marmalade; keep them often stirred that they may not burn, and let them cool before they are put into the crust. This quantity is for a moderate-sized Charlotte.