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MAIDS OF HONOUR (another way)
Blanch, peel, and dry two ounces of Jordan almonds, put them in a mortar with four ounces of castor sugar, and pound till fine; add the yolks of two eggs, one at a time; mix in two table-spoonfuls of cream, a table-spoonful of orange-flour water, and half an ounce of Paisley flour. Line some tartlet-moulds with puff-paste, fill with the mixture, and bake in a moderate oven.
An almond tartlet in the Richmond style, minus the curd that usually defines it. Two of the ingredient names have gone out of use entirely, and one is a brand rather than a thing.
- Jordan almondsThese are the large, sweet, flat almonds of Spanish origin sold whole, not the sugar-shelled confection the name now suggests. Blanched whole almonds are the direct substitute; ground almonds will work but give a coarser, oilier filling than pounding does.
- Paisley flourA trade name for the cornflour milled by Brown & Polson of Paisley, so read it as cornflour, or cornstarch in the US. Half an ounce is about two level tablespoons, and it is there to stop the yolks curdling.
- Orange-flour waterA printer's slip for orange-flower water, the distilled orange-blossom flavouring. Strengths vary between bottles, so start with a teaspoon and taste rather than using the full tablespoon.
- Castor sugarSuperfine or caster sugar. Four ounces to two ounces of almonds is a sweet filling by current taste, and the pounding is what matters: sugar acts as the abrasive that keeps the almonds from turning to paste.
- Moderate ovenConventionally read as around 350F (180C). Small tartlets will want roughly 15 to 20 minutes; the filling should be just set and barely coloured, as overbaking makes it grainy and weeps.
- The pastePuff paste in tartlet moulds wants to be rolled thin and rested cold before filling, or it will shrink down the sides and let the custard escape. Chill the lined moulds while you make the filling.
- YieldThe recipe gives no number; the quantities suggest roughly a dozen tartlets in shallow patty tins. Best eaten the day they are baked.
Maids of honour are firmly attached to Richmond in Surrey, and the usual telling has them made at or near Hampton Court and named for the queen's attendants; the connection to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn is traditional rather than documented. The Richmond original is a curd tart, made with the fresh curd left from separating milk, and Newens of Kew Road built a long trade on selling them. This version drops the curd altogether and works the richness up from pounded almonds, yolks and cream instead, appearing in Cassell's as "another way" ime under under the same head. The cornflour is the giveaway of its date: a nineteenth-century industrial starch quietly doing the stabilising work that a stiff curd used to do on its own.