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Timbale, for Macaroni, Etc
The paste for a hot timbale should be a little more delicate than for a cold pie; therefore put more butter into it. Take a pound of flour, a little more than half a pound of butter, two yolks of eggs, and a pinch of salt. Work these with half a glassful of water, making the paste as smooth as possible; proceed then as follows. Butter a plain mould well all over, decorate the bottom a little and the sides by using some of the same paste and adding some pounded sugar; the paste will take a browner colour, and will add to the appearance of the timbales. Spread the paste over a dresser, cut a piece the size of the bottom of the mould (using the mould to measure with), and cover the bottom of the mould and all the decorations without disturbing them; water the ornamented paste as above, then stick the other paste lightly over, and cut a bit to put all round over the decorated parts. Roll a little paste also to stick the whole together round the bottom, then fill the mould with beef suet chopped fine, and make an cover to it; put this case into the oven for an hour, and when done empty it for use. It may be used for macaroni, fricassee, blanquettes of every kind, etc. etc.
This is not a dish but a container: a rich short pastry drum, baked blind in a mould and then filled with something saucy. Everything hinges on the case coming out of the mould whole.
- The suet is not an ingredientThe chopped suet is packed in purely as blind-baking ballast, and "empty it for use" means tip it out and discard it. Ceramic beans, dried rice or dried beans over a paper or foil lining do the same job with less mess; the case must be filled to the brim so the walls cannot slump.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given, and the original offers no oven term to translate. A steady moderate oven -- in modern terms perhaps somewhere around 350F -- for the full hour is a reasonable guess; too hot and the decorated exterior colours long before the base is set.
- Half a glassful of waterRead this as about 2 fl oz (60 ml) for the pound of flour, bearing in mind that a 'glassful' is not a fixed measure. With two yolks and 9 oz of butter the dough should just come together; add the water a spoonful at a time and stop as soon as it does.
- The proportions in modern terms1 lb (450 g) flour, a little over 8 oz — call it 9 oz (250 g) — butter, 2 egg yolks, salt. This is a hot-water-free pâte à foncer, sturdier than shortcrust but not puff.
- The sugar in the decorationsPounded (caster) sugar is worked into only the paste used for the applied ornament, so those pieces brown darker than the plain case and the pattern reads after baking. It is a colouring trick, not sweetening.
- "Water the ornamented paste"Brushing with water is the glue: dampen the decorations, then press the lining sheet on so the two bond without shifting the pattern. A dresser is simply the worktop.
- Mould and unmouldingA plain charlotte mould or straight-sided cake tin of 1 to 1.5 quarts is the right shape. Butter it heavily, and let the baked case settle a few minutes before turning it out — a hot case with a warm butter-rich seam at the base is where it cracks.
- Yield and fillingThe recipe gives no yield; a case of this size would probably serve six to eight. Fill it at the last moment with something thick and already cooked -- macaroni bound with cheese sauce, a chicken blanquette, a fricassee -- since a loose sauce will soften the pastry within minutes.
Timbale is the French word for a kettledrum, and later also for a metal drinking cup; the term is generally traced back to Arabic al-tabl, a drum, by way of Spanish atabal. The name describes the vessel, and by extension anything baked or moulded in that drum shape — first the pastry case itself, later the custard-bound mixtures set in small moulds that the word usually means now. A case like this belongs to the ornamental service of the nineteenth-century professional kitchen, where a made dish was rarely sent to table naked if it could be presented inside something built and decorated by hand. The book treats it as a component rather than a dish: a cook was expected to learn the case once and then keep it in reserve for macaroni, fricassees and blanquettes of every kind. The suet packing is a reminder of how cheap and abundant beef fat was in a Victorian kitchen — it could be spent as a mere weight and then thrown out or rendered for something else.