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Dauphines
Line some patty-pans with crust a quarter of an inch thick, decorate the edges, put a little jam in each, and bake in a moderate oven for about fifteen minutes until crisp; then take them out and let them cool. Whip the whites of four eggs to a stiff froth, mix in half a pound of castor sugar quickly, and form a pyramid of this on each tart. Put them back into a very cool oven to become firm, but do not let them get brown. Set them aside in a cool place till they are cold. A few drops of cochineal added to the white of an egg will give a delicate pink tint to the dauphines. Probable cost, 1s. 2d.
A jam tartlet under a peaked meringue, from an era when "oven" meant a coal range with hotter and cooler corners rather than a dial. The two bakes are at very different heats, which is the whole trick.
- Patty-pansShallow tartlet tins, roughly 2 to 2.5 inches across. A standard 12-hole bun or shallow muffin tin is the closest modern equivalent; a deep muffin tin gives too much wall for the amount of filling.
- Oven temperaturesA moderate oven for the pastry is around 350F. The "very cool oven" for the meringue is roughly 200-225F, and the instruction not to let it brown is the real specification: bake until the meringue is set and firm, which may take an hour or more, and turn the oven off and leave the door ajar if it starts to colour.
- Castor sugarSuperfine or caster sugar, finer than granulated and coarser than powdered. Granulated will work but dissolves more slowly and can weep; do not substitute confectioners' sugar, which contains cornstarch.
- "Mix in quickly"Half a pound of sugar to four whites is a stiff, hard meringue ratio, about 2 oz per white. Beating the sugar in a spoonful at a time once the whites hold soft peaks gives a far more stable froth than dumping it in; the direction to work quickly is presumably about not losing volume, and gradual addition achieves the same end better.
- The jamUse a thick, well-set preserve and only a teaspoon or so per shell. A loose jam boils over the pastry edge during the first bake and will not support the meringue afterwards.
- Cooling between stagesThe shells must be genuinely cold before the meringue goes on; the recipe then directs that the finished dauphines be set aside in a cool place till cold. Meringue put on warm pastry slumps.
- CochinealA red colouring made from the dried scale insect Dactylopius coccus, still sold as carmine or E120. Any red food colouring does the same job; a few drops only, beaten into the whites at the start.
- YieldThe quantity of meringue suits about a dozen small tartlets. The "probable cost, 1s. 2d." is the book's household budgeting note, not a measurement.
The name is French kitchen shorthand rather than a description: a la dauphine attached itself to a scattering of dishes taking their name from the dauphine, the wife of the heir to the French throne, though the connection to any particular dish is not documented. English cookery books of the nineteenth century appear to have used such names loosely for small, sweet and decorated things. Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery, which the "probable cost" line points to, was compiled in the 1870s for middle-class households, and this entry shows the pattern of the book plainly enough -- a pastry case, a spoon of preserve, and a stiff meringue that could be built up into a pyramid for effect. Hard meringue of this kind depends on a very slow oven, which a banked coal range could supply after the day's main cooking was done. The cochineal note is characteristic too: tinted meringue and sugar work were a cheap way to make a plain tea table look considered.