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Cheese Ramakins
Take very light puff paste and roll it out evenly. Then grate over it Parmesan cheese, or any other kind having a good flavor. Fold the paste in three; roll it out again and grate more cheese over it; fold the paste; roll it out and cut in any shape desired. The ramakins must be baked with a quick heat; fifteen minutes is sufficient to cook them. Dish on a hot napkin and serve at once. The ramakins look much nicer if brushed over with yolk of egg before putting them in the oven to cook.
A cheese pastry built like a rough puff — cheese folded in as though it were butter — and served hot from the oven. Two details carry the dish: a genuinely hot oven and cheese dry enough to grate to powder.
- "Quick heat"A quick oven is usually reckoned somewhere around 400-450F. Puff paste needs that initial blast to turn its water to steam and lift the layers; in a slack oven the fat leaks out and the pastry sits flat and greasy. Fifteen minutes, as the recipe says, suits small pieces a few inches across at that heat.
- The name"Ramakins" (ramequins) here means small cheese pastries, not the porcelain dishes. Nothing is baked in a ramekin — cut the paste into rounds, fingers or diamonds and bake them on a flat sheet.
- Which cheeseUse a hard, dry, well-aged grating cheese — Parmesan, aged Gruyère, dry aged Cheddar. Anything moist releases water and fat between the layers and the paste will not rise. Grate it fine, on the small holes.
- Puff paste"Very light puff paste" means a fully laminated dough. Store-bought all-butter puff pastry is a fair substitute; give it the two extra cheese-and-fold turns described, keeping it cold, and rest it 20–30 minutes in the refrigerator before cutting.
- CuttingCut with a sharp knife or cutter pressed straight down, not dragged, so the layers stay free at the edges. Keep the egg wash off the cut sides for the same reason.
- Egg washYolk thinned with a teaspoon of water or cream brushes more evenly than yolk alone and browns without scorching. A little extra grated cheese scattered on top after washing is a common addition, though the recipe does not call for it.
- "Dish on a hot napkin"A folded linen napkin laid in the serving dish, absorbing steam so the pastry stays crisp. A warmed plate lined with a cloth or paper does the same job.
- YieldThe recipe specifies no quantities. As a rough guide, something like 12 oz of paste with 2-3 oz of cheese will give a couple of dozen small pastries. They are at their best within minutes of leaving the oven.
Cheese ramequins belong to the English savoury course, the small hot dish served after the sweet at Victorian and Edwardian dinners, alongside anchovy toasts, devilled biscuits and cheese straws. The French word ramequin covered a range of little cheese preparations a,, pastry — and by the late nineteenth century English cookbooks used it loosely for almost any hot cheese trifle brought to table in one bite. The method of folding grated cheese into puff paste in successive turns is the same technique that produces cheese straws.