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Queen's Tartlets
Puff paste Fresh strawberries or raspberries Sugar Whipped Cream Make the paste according to the recipe for puff paste. When the tartlet cases are baked and just cool, fill them with either fresh strawberries or raspberries, slightly broken up and covered with sugar. Leave room for the whipped cream, which must be put on top.
A recipe written for a cook who already knows puff paste; the whole thing turns on the cases being crisp and the assembly happening late.
- Assemble at the last minuteFruit crushed with sugar begins weeping within minutes, and the syrup will soften baked puff paste quickly. Fill and top no more than fifteen minutes before serving.
- Puff pasteThe book's own puff paste recipe is meant here; a good all-butter frozen puff pastry is a fair substitute. Two sheets will give you roughly a dozen small cases.
- Baking the casesBake tartlet shells at 400-425F until fully coloured and dry inside, 15-20 minutes depending on size. Underbaked puff paste collapses under wet fruit.
- Keeping the shells openCut two rounds per tartlet, one whole and one with the centre removed, and stack them, or bake in tartlet tins weighted with paper and beans, then press the centre down while warm to make a well.
- Sugar quantityNo amount is given. Allow about 1 tablespoon sugar per cup of berries, less for ripe midsummer fruit, and let it stand only five minutes so the berries hold their shape.
- Whipped creamCream in this period was unstandardised and often richer than modern supermarket whipping cream. Use heavy cream, 36 percent or more, whipped to soft peaks; sweeten lightly or not at all, since the fruit is already sugared.
- YieldFigure one to two tartlets per person and about 2 cups of berries and 1 cup of cream for a dozen small cases.
"Queen's" in a dessert name is more often decorative than historical, and the attribution to any particular queen is rarely traceable. The French kitchen term à la reine is generally associated with rich, creamy preparations served in a pastry case, though the connection to a dish like this one is a matter of naming fashion rather than documented borrowing. Collections of meatless cookery proliferated in Britain and the United States in the 1910s and 1920s, driven partly by wartime food economy and partly by the vegetarian and food-reform movements of the period. Fruit desserts sat easily in such books, being already meatless without substitution. Strawberries and raspberries were seasonal in that era, which may be why the recipe assumes fresh fruit and gives no quantities.