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Creole Kisses (Lb Jordan almonds Whites eggs)
1/2 lb. Jordan almonds Whites 4 eggs 1/4 cup boiling water 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1/4 teaspoon salt Blanch almonds, finely shred one-half of them, and dry slowly in oven. Put water and sugar in a saucepan, and as soon as boiling-point is reached, add remaining almonds, and cook until the syrup is of a golden brown color. Turn into a pan, cool, and finely pound in mortar. Beat whites of eggs until stiff, add gradually sugar, then vanilla, almonds, and salt. Shape, sprinkle with shredded almonds, sift sugar over them, and bake in a slow oven twenty-five minutes.
A meringue built on two forms of almond: half caramelized into praline and pounded fine, half shredded and toasted for the tops. The praline is the flavour of the cookie, so the syrup has to be taken far enough to colour.
- Jordan almondsHere this means the large, flat, sweet almonds of the Málaga type, not the sugar-shelled confections sold under that name today. Any good whole blanched almond will do; 1/2 lb is about 1 1/2 cups.
- The praline stepHalf a cup of sugar with a quarter cup of water is boiled to a golden brown caramel, somewhere in the low-to-mid 300s F. The recipe puts the almonds in as soon as the syrup boils and cooks them in it until it colours; take the pan off the heat as soon as the colour is there, since it darkens after.
- Pounding the pralineA mortar was the tool of the day; a food processor pulsed in short bursts works better. Stop while it is still sandy, before the oil comes out and it turns to paste.
- "A slow oven"Usually rendered about 300F, sometimes as low as 275F. For meringues that hold their shape without colouring, the lower end for 30 to 35 minutes is the safer reading of the same instruction.
- The two sugarsThe 1/2 cup granulated goes into the caramel; the powdered sugar is beaten into the whites, with some of it reserved to sift over the shaped kisses. Add it a spoonful at a time to whites already at stiff peaks, or the meringue slackens.
- Fold, do not beatOnce the pounded praline goes in, fold. The almond oil in the praline is the enemy of egg foam, so work quickly and shape at once.
- PansParchment on a heavy sheet. Praline meringues stick badly and the sugar in them scorches on a thin dark pan.
- Yield and keepingSeveral dozen small kisses, depending on how generously they are shaped. Cool completely and store airtight; humidity turns them tacky within hours.
Cake-and-frosting chapters of American cookbooks around 1900 carried a long roster of "kisses" — small baked meringues distinguished by whatever was folded in — and the Creole name here points at the praline, the caramelized-almond confection long associated with New Orleans. The French praline made with almonds crossed the Atlantic and, in Louisiana, generally shifted to pecans as the local nut; recipes like this one keep the almond original while borrowing the New Orleans label. Grinding hardened caramel and nuts in a mortar to make a flavouring powder was standard confectioners' practice of the period, a way of getting deep toasted flavour into a batter or foam that could not itself be browned.