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Cinnamon Bars
10 ozs. almond paste White 1 egg 5 ozs. Confectioners' sugar 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon Mix same as Macaroons. Dredge a board with sugar, knead mixture slightly, and shape in a long roll. Pat, and roll one-fourth inch thick, using a rolling-pin. After rolling the piece should be four inches wide. Spread with frosting made of white of one egg and two-thirds cup confectioners' sugar beaten together until stiff enough to spread. Cut in strips four inches long by three-fourths inch wide. This must be quickly done, as a crust soon forms over frosting. To accomplish this, use two knives, one placed through mixture where dividing line is to be made, and the other used to make a clean sharp cut on both sides of first knife. Knives should be kept clean by wiping on a damp cloth. Remove strips as soon as cut, to a tin sheet, greased with lard and then floured. Bake twenty minutes on centre grate in a slow oven. Cocoanut Cakes I 1/2 lb. fresh grated cocoanut 6 ozs. sugar and glucose, using one mixing-spoon glucose Whites 1 1/2 eggs German Confectioner Cook cocoanut, sugar, and glucose in double boiler until mixture clings to spoon, add whites of eggs, stir vigorously, and cook until mixture feels sticky when tried between the fingers. Spread in a wet pan, cover with wet paper, and chill on ice. Shape in small balls, first dipping hands in cold water. Bake twenty minutes in a slow oven on a tin sheet greased with white wax.
A marzipan-based bar cookie, frosted before baking rather than after. The whole trick is speed at the cutting stage.
- Slow ovenThe book gives no temperatures; a slow oven of this period is usually read as somewhere around 300-325F. Err low: the egg-white glaze should set dry and barely coloured, and more heat risks browning and cracking it while the paste beneath is still soft.
- Almond paste, not marzipanTen ounces of almond paste means the dense, roughly half-almond, half-sugar block sold in tubes or cans, not the sweeter rolling marzipan. If your paste is very firm, break it up and work it with the egg white in a stand mixer with the paddle before adding the sugar.
- "Mix same as Macaroons"The macaroon method is not reproduced here. The usual procedure is to work the almond paste smooth with the whites and sugar in stages until free of lumps, adding the cinnamon with the sugar; sugar worked into a lumpy paste will not smooth out afterwards.
- Cut before the glaze skins overThis is the hinge of the recipe. The frosting forms a dry crust within a few minutes, after which a knife drags and tears it. Have the sheet, the two knives and a damp cloth ready before you spread.
- The two-knife methodOne blade is pressed straight down as a guide and left in place; the second cuts along either side of it. It gives a clean edge without the frosting stretching. Wipe both blades between cuts.
- Pan preparationGrease with butter or a neutral shortening in place of lard, then dust with flour. Parchment works and is easier, though the bottoms stay a little paler.
- Yield and keepingA 4-inch strip rolled from this quantity gives roughly two dozen bars, three-quarters of an inch wide. They keep well in a tin for a week or more and, like most almond-paste sweets, improve after a day.
Almond-paste doughs glazed with royal icing and cut into fingers are a fixture of Continental Christmas baking, close cousins to Zimtsterne, the cinnamon stars cut with a cutter instead of a knife. The "German Confectioner" line in the book attaches to the coconut recipe that follows, not to these bars. Glazing the sheet before cutting rather than icing each finished cookie may reflect shop practice, being quicker across a large batch. Glucose, called for in the coconut recipe, was the trade confectioner's standard anti-crystallising sugar; what a home cook would now reach for is corn syrup.