Home › The Principles of Cookery › Almond Puffs
Almond Puffs
Blanch and pound two ounces of sweet almonds with a little water. Add two table-spoonfuls of finely-sifted sugar, two ounces of clarified butter, two table-spoonfuls of flour. When these are thoroughly mixed, add the beaten yolks of two eggs, and a cupful of cream. Well oil about a dozen patty-pans, and half fill them with the mixture. Bake in a moderate oven for half an hour. Probable cost, 1s. Serve one for each person.
A thin, custard-rich almond batter baked in small tins — closer to a baked almond custard than to anything made with puff pastry. A few Victorian conventions need translating.
- Pound with water, not dryThe splash of water is the point of the instruction: worked dry, almonds release their oil and turn to paste. A food processor with a teaspoon or two of water gives the same fine, pale meal. Ready-ground almonds work but produce a slightly coarser puff.
- Moderate ovenConventionally read as about 350F (175C); the book gives no temperature. The recipe's half hour is the stated time, though small tins may set sooner, so check them from around 20 minutes.
- Patty-pansSmall shallow tartlet or bun tins. A dozen, half filled, is what the batter quantity suits; judge by filling each tin halfway rather than by any modern tin size. Half filling matters — the mixture rises and then sinks as it cools.
- A cupful of creamVictorian cup measures were not standardised; read it as about 8 fl oz of single or light cream. The batter will look alarmingly loose, and should. This is a custard set with a little flour, not a cake.
- Clarified butterTwo ounces is a quarter cup. Clarified butter was called for where a clean, water-free fat was wanted; plain melted butter works, with a slightly softer set.
- Finely-sifted sugarCaster or superfine sugar. Two tablespoons for a dozen small puffs is restrained by modern standards — expect a gently sweet, almond-forward result rather than a dessert-sweet one.
- Oiling the tinsDo this thoroughly and get the puffs out while still warm. An eggy, sugary custard batter grips cold metal.
- Yield and servingAbout a dozen small puffs, one per person as the book directs, served warm. They deflate within minutes of leaving the oven, which is expected.
Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery was a late-Victorian household reference arranged alphabetically, and it routinely quotes a "probable cost" — here one shilling. Almond puffs belong to an older English tradition than the book itself: recipes under that name appear in eighteenth-century receipt collections. Almonds, imported and comparatively expensive, were long associated with genteel sweet dishes, and blanching and pounding them by hand in a mortar was laborious work. This version leans on egg yolks and cream rather than whipped whites or chemical raising, which sets it apart from those eighteenth-century almond puffs built on beaten egg white.