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Crescents
1/2 lb. almond paste Almonds, blanched and finely chopped 2 ozs. confectioners' sugar White 1 small egg Mix same as Macaroons. Shape mixture, which is quite soft, in a long roll. Cut pieces from roll three-fourths inch long. Roll each separately in chopped nuts, at the same time shaping to form a crescent. Bake twenty minutes on a buttered tin sheet in a slow oven. Cool, and frost with Confectioners' Frosting, made thin enough to apply with a brush, and flavored with lemon juice until quite acid. Other nuts may be used in place of almonds.
A macaroon dough of almond paste, sugar and egg white, shaped into small horns and glazed with a sharp lemon icing. The dough is deliberately soft, so cold hands and a light touch matter more than precision.
- QuantitiesHalf a pound of almond paste is 8 oz, and 2 oz of confectioners' sugar is roughly half a cup, sifted. The chopped almonds for rolling are given without a quantity; about 1 cup covers this amount of dough with some to spare.
- Almond paste, not marzipanAlmond paste is roughly equal parts ground almonds and sugar and is meant to be worked further; marzipan carries far more sugar and will bake sweeter and spread more. Buy the paste in a can or tube rather than the moulded confectionery block.
- "Mix same as Macaroons"The method assumed here is to break the paste down with the sugar until no lumps remain, then work in the egg white gradually to a smooth, soft mass. Adding the white all at once is likely to give a slacker dough that holds a crescent poorly.
- Slow ovenThe book gives no temperatures; "slow oven" in this period is usually reckoned somewhere in the 250-300F range. Twenty minutes at that heat dries the outside and sets the shape while leaving the centre chewy; a hotter oven browns the chopped nuts before the interior is done.
- ShapingThree-quarter-inch pieces are small. Roll each in the nuts, then taper the ends and bend into a horn on the sheet itself, since the dough softens quickly from the warmth of the hands.
- The tin sheetButtered tin was standard, but sugar-heavy almond dough sticks stubbornly; parchment is the reliable modern substitute and needs no fat.
- The frostingConfectioners' frosting here is simply sifted icing sugar loosened with liquid, and it should be thin enough to flow off a brush without dripping. Lemon juice "until quite acid" is the point of the recipe: the acid cuts the almond sweetness, so taste as you go rather than measuring.
- YieldDepends on how thick the roll is made; something in the region of two to three dozen small crescents. They keep several days in a tin.
Almond crescents belong to a broad Central European family of horn-shaped pastries and confections, often traced to the Viennese Kipferl, and an almond-paste version survives in German bakeries as Mandelhörnchen, usually with the tips dipped in chocolate rather than brushed with lemon icing. Almond paste was a commercial product bought by the pound, and the recipe's own instruction to "mix same as Macaroons" shows a single soft paste dough serving more than one purpose, the difference lying in shaping and finish.