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Cakes (Done shake some fine sifted)
done shake some fine sifted sugar over them, set | taking particular care that they do not acquire them back again in the oven until the sugar is nearly melted, and then pass the red-hot salamander over them to give them a bright, glossy appearance; the loaves must now be immediately withdrawn from the oven and allowed to cool.
Just before sending this kind of pastry to table make an incision down the sides and fill the small loaves with apricot-jam; then dish them up in a pyramidal form on a napkin, and serve.
Almond Cakes.
Six ounces of flour, 8 ounces of sugar, 2 ounces of ground or finely-powdered almonds (with a few bitter almonds), 6 yolks of eggs, 2 whole eggs, 4 whites whipped, a glass of brandy, a little salt, 4 ounces of chopped almonds mixed with 2 ounces of sugar and half the white of an egg. First work the butter in a basin with a spoon until it presents a creamy appearance; next add the flour, sugar, almonds, brandy, eggs and salt gradually; then mix in the whipped whites of eggs lightly; pour this paste on a baking-sheet about an inch and a half deep (previously buttered), bake it of a light color. When the cake is nearly done spread the prepared chopped almonds over the top, and then put it back again into the oven to finish baking; when done the almonds should be of a light fawn color.
Turn the cake out carefully, and when cold cut it up into bands about an inch and a half wide; then again divide them into diamond-shaped cakes and dish them up pyramidally. Some whipped cream may be placed in the centre of the dish and the cakes neatly dished up round it. Dried cherries, Sultana raisins, currants, any kind of candied peel, pistachios, or Spanish nuts, may be added. The cakes may also be flavored with any kind of essence or liqueur.
Meringues.
One pound of sifted sugar and 12 whites of eggs. Whisk the whites in an egg-bowl until they present the appearance of a perfectly white, smooth, substantial froth, resembling snow; then substitute a spoon for the whisk and proceed to mix in the whole of the sugar lightly; carefully avoid working the batter too much, for fear of rendering it soft, as in that case it becomes difficult to mould the meringues; they can never be so gracefully shaped as when it is kept firm. Next cut some stiff foolscap paper into bands about two inches wide; then take a tablespoon and gather it nearly full of the batter by working it up at the side of the bowl in the form of an egg, and drop this slopingly upon one of the bands of paper, at the same time drawing the edge of the spoon sharply round the outer base of the meringue, so as to give to it a smooth and rounded appearance, in order that it may exactly resemble an egg. Proceed in this manner until the band is full, keeping the meringues about two inches and a half apart from each other on the paper; as each band is filled, place them close beside each other on the slab or table, and when all the batter is used up, shake some rather coarse sifted sugar all over them and allow them to remain for about three minutes; then take hold of one of the bands at each end, shake off the loose sugar and place the band of meringues on the board, and so on with the other bands, which, when placed carefully on the boards closely side by side, must be put in the oven (at very moderate heat) and baked of a light fawn color. When done, each piece of meringue must be carefully removed from off the paper, the white part of the inside scooped out with a dessert-spoon and then nicely smoothed over; after this they must be placed in neat order on a bakingsheet and put back again in the oven to dry, any more color. When about to send the meringues to table, whip some double cream, season it with a little powdered sugar and either a glass of any kind of liqueur, a few drops of orange-flowerwater, or some pounded vanilla; garnish each piece with a spoonful of this cream, join two together, dish them up in a pyramidal form on a napkin, and serve.
Two finished recipes appear here — almond cakes and meringues — along with the tail end of a small-loaf pastry. The almond cakes call for bitter almonds, which is why the caution above applies; the notes below explain that and untangle the older vocabulary.
- Bitter almondsBitter almonds contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the nuts are chopped, ground or moistened. Raw bitter almonds are not sold as food in the United States. Do not make the almond cake as written; use a current recipe if you want an almond cake.
- The missing butterThe almond cake ingredient list gives flour, sugar, almonds, eggs, brandy and salt, but the method opens by telling you to cream the butter, which is never quantified. This looks like an omission in the printed text rather than a technique, and the amount cannot be recovered from what survives.
- SalamanderIn the loaf fragment, the salamander is a thick iron disc on a long handle, heated red in the fire and held over the sugar to glaze it. A broiler element does the same work in a modern kitchen, though far less locally.
- "Very moderate" for meringuesThe book gives no temperatures; for meringues this means a very slack oven, in modern terms somewhere in the region of 200-225F. They are being dried rather than baked, and the point of the instruction is that they must not colour beyond light fawn.
- Foolscap paperFoolscap was a size of stiff, uncoated writing paper, pressed into service here and cut into two-inch bands so a whole row could be lifted at once. Parchment strips are the direct equivalent, and the trick of loading and moving a full band is still worth copying.
- Double creamBritish double cream runs about 48 percent butterfat. Heavy or whipping cream at 36 percent will whip and hold, but the filling will be looser and softer than the original intends.
- Scooping the shellsHollowing out the soft interior with a dessert spoon and returning the shells to dry is what makes the two halves join into a light, hollow egg. Skip it and the centres stay damp and the pairs will not seat together.
- YieldA pound of sugar to twelve whites gives roughly 24 to 30 shells, so twelve to fifteen filled and joined meringues.
This is French pastry-kitchen writing of the mid-nineteenth century: the vocabulary of the salamander, the foolscap bands and the insistence on dishing everything up "pyramidally" on a napkin all belong to the grande cuisine tradition of Carême and his successors, where sweets arrived at table built into architecture rather than plated. Meringue as a name is generally traced either to the Swiss town of Meiringen or to an obscure French or German origin, neither well documented; the technique of sugar beaten into egg whites and dried in a cooling bread oven appears in French printed cookery by the end of the seventeenth century. Bitter almonds turn up constantly in books of this period as a flavouring — a few added to sweet almonds to sharpen the almond note, doing the job that almond extract does now — and they appear here casually, unremarked and unmeasured.