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Condes
Whites 2 eggs 2 oz. almonds, blanched and finely chopped 3/4 cup powdered sugar Beat whites of eggs until still, add sugar gradually, then almonds. Roll paste, and cut in strips three and one-half inches long by one and one-half inches wide. Spread with mixture; avoid having it come close to edge. Dust with powdered sugar and bake fifteen minutes in moderate oven. Meringue I Whites 2 eggs 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice or 1/4 teaspoon vanilla 2 tablespoons powdered sugar Beat whites until stiff, add sugar gradually and continue beating, then add flavoring.
Condés are strips of puff pastry masked with an almond meringue and baked until the topping sets pale and crisp. The ingredient list covers only the topping; the pastry is assumed.
- The missing ingredient"Roll paste" means puff paste, which the book expects you to have already made. A sheet of all-butter frozen puff pastry, thawed and rolled to about 1/8 inch, is the practical substitute.
- Moderate oven350F. The meringue should dry and colour faintly rather than brown; if it is taking on real colour at fifteen minutes, drop to 325F.
- Why the topping is kept off the edgePuff pastry rises most at the cut edges. Meringue spread to the edge weighs them down and runs over the side as the layers open, so leave a clear margin of about a quarter inch.
- Powdered sugarConfectioners' sugar. Period powdered sugar was generally pulverised sugar with less added starch than modern boxed confectioners' sugar, though this varied. Modern powdered sugar works.
- AlmondsTwo ounces is about a scant half cup of blanched almonds. Chop by hand or pulse briefly; ground almond flour makes a paste rather than the intended coarse, slightly gritty coating.
- Beating the whitesStiff but not dry. Whites beaten past the point of gloss will weep sugar syrup onto the pastry during baking.
- YieldTwo whites and this quantity of almonds will cover roughly twelve to sixteen strips of the given size, depending on how thickly the meringue is spread.
- Serving and keepingBest the day they are baked. The pastry softens overnight under the meringue; a few minutes in a 300F oven revives them somewhat.
Condé is one of the many French kitchen names traditionally said to come from a noble house -- the Bourbon-Condé line -- and applied loosely across the repertoire: there is a rice-and-fruit dessert called riz à la Condé and a purée-of-red-bean soup called Condé, with no particular link between them beyond the compliment. The presence of a plain meringue formula alongside it reflects how these books were organised: one whipped-white mixture, then deployed on pastry, on pies, or piped and dried on its own.