Home › Griddle Cakes › Violette
Violette
Cover flat side of lady fingers-with white fondant, on which place candied violets, with dark citron stems; dip edges in candy syrup; arrange in cups; unmould and fill with whipped cream, flavored, tinted violet, sweetened; garnish.
A charlotte-style assembly rather than a baked dish: ladyfingers are decorated, stood up inside a mould, then filled with violet cream. Nothing is cooked, so the whole thing hinges on the fondant setting firmly enough to hold the decoration while the biscuits are handled.
- Work the fondant warm, not hotWhite fondant is usually softened over hot water only until it will coat the flat side of the biscuit in a smooth film; overheating it dulls the surface and coarsens the grain.
- Candied violetsCrystallised violets are still sold by confectionery and baking suppliers, usually as whole sugared flowers. Set them on the fondant while it is still tacky; once set they will not adhere without a dab of extra fondant or royal icing.
- Citron for the stemsCandied citron peel, the thick green-tinged rind used in old fruitcakes. Cut it into slivers with a small sharp knife. Angelica, thinly sliced, is the usual substitute and gives a truer stem colour.
- "Dip edges in candy syrup"A sugar syrup boiled far enough to dry clear and firm on the biscuit edge rather than staying sticky; the book gives no stage or temperature.
- Cups and unmouldingSmall dariole moulds, timbale cups or straight-sided ramekins. Line them with the biscuits standing on end, decorated side against the mould, then invert onto the serving plate before filling, as the recipe directs.
- The fillingCream whipped to soft peaks, sweetened lightly, tinted with a drop of violet colour and flavoured with violet extract or a little creme de violette. Liquid flavouring is easier to incorporate before or early in the whipping.
- Assemble lateWhipped cream begins to weep within an hour or two and the moisture will dissolve the fondant coating. Fill no more than an hour before serving and keep refrigerated.
Violet was one of the defining flavours of turn-of-the-century confectionery, and the crystallised flowers associated above all with Toulouse and with Viennese and Parisian sweet shops turned up on everything from bonbons to iced puddings. A dish built of ladyfingers stood upright in a mould and filled with cream is a charlotte russe in miniature, a form generally credited to the early nineteenth-century French kitchen and to Careme in particular; by 1900 hotel and catering manuals were producing endless individual variants of it, each named for whatever flavoured and tinted the cream. The instructions here are written in the clipped shorthand of the professional pastry department, where the reader was assumed to know already what fondant, candy syrup and citron stems meant, and needed only the design.