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Austrian Puffs
Pound three ounces of almonds in a mortar, with a little rose-water. When reduced to a paste, add three table-spoonfuls of finely-sifted sugar, three ounces of butter melted, but not hot, three table-spoonfuls of flour, and a cupful of new milk or cream. Beat all thoroughly together, well oil the patty-pans, and half fill them. Bake in a moderate oven. Time to bake, twenty minutes. Probable cost, 10d. Sufficient for a dozen puffs.
A very short almond batter of the financier family, with no eggs and no raising agent. What lift there is comes from steam and from air beaten into the mixture, so the beating and the half-filled tins matter more than anything else.
- Beat it properly, and only half fillWith no egg and no chemical raising, the puffs rise on steam and on the air worked into the batter. Beat until the mixture is smooth and slightly aerated, and keep to the instruction to half fill the tins; filled higher, they set as dense little cakes rather than puffs.
- Pounding the almondsThree ounces of blanched almonds ground in a mortar with a splash of rose-water becomes an oily paste. A food processor does it in seconds, but pulse rather than run it, and add the rose-water at the start so the nuts do not simply turn to nut butter. Shop-bought ground almonds are a reasonable substitute; you lose a little of the fresh oil.
- Patty-pansSmall shallow tartlet or bun tins, roughly the size of a modern mini-muffin or shallow cupcake tin. A twelve-hole bun tin gives the stated dozen.
- Moderate oven350F / 175C. Twenty minutes is about right at that heat for tins this small; look for set, lightly coloured tops and edges pulling from the tin.
- New milkSimply fresh milk, unsoured and not skimmed. Whole milk is the nearest thing; cream, as the recipe offers, gives a richer, softer crumb.
- Oil the tinsSalad oil or clarified butter brushed on would have been the likely choices in a kitchen of this date. Butter and a light dusting of flour works better with a batter this rich, which will otherwise stick as the almond oil catches.
- Sugar and flour by spoonThree tablespoons of sifted sugar is about 1 1/2 oz / 40 g; three of flour about 3/4 oz / 25 g. The flour quantity looks small because it is: the structure here is almond, not wheat.
- Rose-waterModern rose-water varies enormously in strength. Start with a teaspoon, taste the raw batter, and add more only if the perfume is faint. Overdone, it reads as soap.
- Yield and servingA dozen small puffs, best eaten the day they are made while the outside is still crisp. Dust with icing sugar; they are a tea-table item rather than a dessert.
Cassell's, compiled in the 1870s and reissued for decades after, gathered dozens of small almond confections under national names that reflected the prestige of Viennese and French patisserie in the English middle-class kitchen rather than any documented origin abroad; it is often suggested that many "Austrian" and "Vienna" items in such books are English inventions wearing a fashionable label. What is genuinely old here is the flavouring: pounded almond moistened with rose-water is a medieval and early-modern English combination that survived in sweet baking long after rose-water had disappeared from savoury cookery, and by the late nineteenth century it may well have read as slightly antique. The mortar instruction dates the recipe as much as anything else -- grinding your own almonds was still normal domestic work, and ready-ground almonds only became a common shop purchase later.