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Chopped Pistachio Nut
Trim the Savoy biscuits neatly, as if for Charlotte Russe. Brush the apricot marmalade over the Genoese pastry. Place one slice on to a dish with a lace paper, and stand the Savoy biscuits round it. Tie the pink ribbon around them to keep them in place. Cut the apricots, each into four pieces, and reserve one-third for decorating.
Mix the cream with the sugar and vanilla essence and put half of it into a forcing bag with a rose pipe. Stir the apricots into the remainder and pour it into the biscuits; cover with the second piece of Genoese and pipe the cream on top.
Place the pieces of apricot round the cream and sprinkle with pistachio nut.
This is an assembly recipe: the sponge, the biscuits and the cream are all made elsewhere in the book, and no quantities are given here. Read it as a diagram rather than a formula.
- Savoy biscuitsThese are the finger biscuits sold today as ladyfingers, boudoir biscuits or savoiardi. Trim one end flat so they stand upright and level against the sponge; a serrated knife and a sawing motion prevents crumbling.
- Genoese pastryGenoese here means genoise sponge, a whisked butter sponge baked in a shallow tray and cut to shape, not pastry in the modern sense. Cut two discs or squares of the same size, about half an inch thick, and make them slightly narrower than the ring of biscuits so the cream fills the gap.
- Apricot marmaladePeriod marmalade means a stiff fruit puree or jam; sieved apricot jam warmed with a spoonful of water is a close equivalent. Brushed on warm it sets tacky, which may help hold the biscuits against the sponge, though the recipe relies on the ribbon for that.
- The apricotsThe text does not say whether these are fresh or preserved; tinned or bottled halves, well drained, suit the method. Fresh apricots release juice into the cream and will slacken it; if using them, poach and drain first.
- Cream and forcing bagDouble or heavy cream whipped to a firm peak with caster sugar and vanilla. A forcing bag with a rose pipe is a piping bag with a star tip; pipe while the cream is still cold and the piping holds its ridges.
- No quantitiesNothing is measured in the text as given, though its definite articles ('the pink ribbon') suggest an ingredient list stood alongside it. For a cake of about seven inches, roughly 20 to 24 biscuits, 600 ml cream, 4 tablespoons sugar and a 400 g tin of apricots is a workable scale.
- Lace paper and ribbonThe lace paper is a doily and the ribbon is structural as well as decorative, holding the biscuit palisade until the cream sets. Tie it so it can be adjusted, and chill the finished cake at least two hours before cutting the ribbon or serving.
- PistachiosBlanch shelled pistachios in boiling water for a minute, slip off the skins and chop fine to get the bright green the recipe assumes. Unblanched nuts read brown-grey against the cream.
- YieldOn the scale suggested above, serves six to eight. Cut with a thin knife dipped in hot water so the biscuit ring does not shatter.
The construction here is a Charlotte Russe by another name: a wall of Savoy biscuits tied round a cream filling, a form generally traced to the early nineteenth-century French kitchen and to Antonin Careme, who is traditionally credited with popularising the cold moulded charlotte. The pink ribbon and lace paper follow the confectioner's dressing of the period, when a sweet went to the table on a doily-lined dish and was expected to look like an ornament as much as a pudding.