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Ramakins Pastry
Take any pieces of good puff-paste left from making pies or tarts, or if these are not at hand make a small quantity of good puff paste. Grate half its weight in Parmesan cheese, roll the pastry out evenly, and sprinkle the cheese lightly over it. Fold it in three, and roll it out lightly; repeat this once or twice until the pastry and cheese are well mixed. Stamp the ramakins out with a small pastry cutter of any shape that may be desired, brush them over with yolk of egg, and bake in a brisk oven. As soon as they are done enough serve them quickly, neatly arranged on a hot napkin. Although Parmesan cheese is the best for this purpose, any dry white cheese may be used instead. Time to bake, a quarter of an hour.
A cheese straw in all but name, built by laminating grated Parmesan into puff pastry trimmings. The only real difficulty is heat and timing.
- "Brisk oven"Read this as 425-450F (220-230C). Puff pastry needs that initial blast to turn its water to steam and lift the layers; a moderate oven gives flat, greasy biscuits.
- The quarter hour is a maximumThe quarter hour is probably an outer limit -- rolled thin and cut small, these will colour well before that, though the recipe gives no thickness. Cheese takes colour faster than pastry, so watch them and pull them when deep gold.
- Half its weight in cheeseFor 8 oz (225 g) of pastry that means 4 oz (115 g) of grated Parmesan, which is a great deal. Adding it in two or three lots across the folds, rather than all at once, is one way to read the instruction to repeat the folding until pastry and cheese are well mixed.
- Keep everything coldGrated hard cheese and repeated rolling both warm the butter. Rest the folded pastry in the refrigerator for 20 minutes before stamping, and chill the cut shapes again on the tray.
- Egg washYolk alone gives the darkest glaze. Brush the tops only; egg running down the cut edges glues the layers together and stops them rising.
- "Any dry white cheese"Taken to mean a firm, low-moisture cheese that grates finely; a dry pecorino, Sbrinz or a well-aged alpine cheese all suit. Softer, moister cheeses release more fat into the pastry.
- Serving on a napkinA folded napkin on a hot dish was the standard way of sending small hot savouries to table; it also takes up steam, which helps keep the pastry crisp.
- Yield8 oz of pastry cut small gives several dozen pieces, enough for six to eight as a savoury or with drinks. They are best eaten soon after baking.
"Ramakin" is the English form of the French ramequin, whose origin is usually traced to a Low German or Dutch word for a small cheese preparation; the shallow porcelain pot we now call a ramekin appears to take its name from the dish rather than the reverse. Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a ramequin could be a baked cheese custard, cheese on toast, or cheese worked into pastry, and cookery books of the period often gave several versions under the one heading. This one belongs to the Victorian savoury, the small hot salty course served after the sweet at a formal dinner, which fits the instruction to serve them quickly on a hot napkin. It is also a thrift recipe, using up puff-paste trimmings from pies and tarts.