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Almond Croquantes
Blanch and pound half a pound of sweet almonds, with half a pound of sugar rubbed on the rind of half a lemon, and a glass of white wine. Add a quarter of a pound of butter and the yolks of four eggs. Mix all into a stiff paste, roll out, cut it into diamonds, stars, etc., and bake these in a quick oven. Dip them for a minute into boiling sugar, and let them drain until cool. Keep them in a dry place, and they will be useful to garnish any kind of sweet dish. Time, about half an hour. Probable cost, 1s. 10d.
A rich almond paste baked into shapes and glazed in boiling sugar, meant as an edible garnish rather than a dish in itself. Two things decide the result: how dry the paste is before baking, and how hot the sugar is when you dip.
- Quick ovenRead this as 425-450F (220-230C). The pieces are thin and sugary, so they colour fast; check at six or seven minutes. The "about half an hour" in the original covers the whole operation, not the bake.
- A glass of white wineGenuinely imprecise in Victorian usage: a wine glass was commonly reckoned at about 2 fl oz, but larger readings exist. Start with 2 tablespoons and add more only if the paste will not come together, since too much liquid makes it impossible to roll.
- Blanch and poundBlanched whole almonds pounded in a mortar give an oily, cohesive paste. A food processor does the same in short pulses; run it too long and the almonds turn to butter. Pre-ground almond flour works but yields a drier, more crumbly result.
- Sugar rubbed on lemon rindThis is the old oleo-saccharum method: dragging the sugar across the whole lemon draws the peel oils into the crystals. It carries far more lemon character than zest stirred in afterwards, and it is worth doing properly rather than substituting extract.
- Handling the pasteWith a quarter of a pound of butter and four yolks, the dough will be soft at room temperature. Chill it an hour before rolling, roll between sheets of paper, and chill the cut shapes again on the tray so they hold their points in the oven.
- The boiling sugarThe dip is a hard sugar syrup taken to roughly 300-310F (150-155C), the hard-crack stage; below that the coating stays tacky and the biscuits soften overnight. Sugar at that temperature burns skin badly on contact, so use tongs or a dipping fork and keep a bowl of cold water beside the pan.
- Keeping them"A dry place" is the operative instruction. The glaze is hygroscopic and will go sticky in a humid kitchen or a plastic box; an airtight tin with a layer of paper between the pieces keeps them crisp for several days.
- YieldHalf a pound of almonds with an equal weight of sugar makes roughly 40 to 50 small diamonds or stars, ample for garnishing several trifles, creams or moulded puddings.
Croquante comes straight from the French for crisp or crunchy, and in nineteenth-century confectionery the word covered a family of hard almond-and-caramel work: the large moulded croquante centrepiece built up from caramelised almonds, and smaller pieces like these, baked and then glazed in boiling sugar. They are not a dessert but a component, made in quantity, stored in a tin, and stuck into creams, jellies and iced puddings to give height and a contrasting snap at table. Almonds and refined sugar were both dear, which is one reason such garnishes signalled a well-appointed household. The technique of rubbing loaf sugar against a lemon to capture the peel oils is often said to have been common in a period before bottled essences were widely trusted.