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Cakes and Pastry: Beignets
Beignets d'abricots à la Chartres are apricot fritters. d'abricots à l'eau de vie-sandwiches of bread dipped in brandy and half apricots, fried in batter. de pêches à la royale-peach fritters. de pêches au vin du Rhin-half peaches soaked in Rhine wine, etc., and fried; served in a syrup of the wine with the kernels. de brugnons-nectarine fritters. de pommes à la d'Orléans-apple fritters. de pommes à la Bavarie-apples soaked in brandy, etc., floured and fried. de poires-pear fritters. de fraises à la Dauphine-strawberry fritters. de groseilles à la Dauphine-currant fritters. d'ananas-pineapple fritters. d'oranges-orange fritters. de fleurs de sureau fritters of sprigs of elder flowers. à la crème are custard fritters. aux confitures-small sandwiches of cake and jam, dipped in batter with wine, and fried. au riz-round or oval pieces of a paste of ground rice with milk, eggs, etc., breadcrumbed and fried.
ENTREMETS.
Beignets à la bonne femme-small fried balls of a paste of butter, sugar, eggs, etc. à la Chantilly are made of a batter of flour, eggs, cream cheese, wine, etc. de Cintra-thin round slices of cake soaked in cream, etc., floured and fried. à l'Allemande-small round sandwiches of brioche paste and preserve, fried. à la Prussienne are the same made of puff paste, with apple marmalade. à l'Espagnole-small pieces of crumb of French roll soaked in cream, etc., and fried. à la Portugaise-balls of a paste of rice, milk, sugar, eggs, etc., with marmalade in the centre; breadcrumbed and fried. en surprise-apples with the stalks left on, soaked in brandy, etc., filled with apricot jam, dipped in batter and fried. à la Saint-Denys-cherries stuck on strips of angelica, dipped in batter and fried.
Beignets soufflés à la vanille are small fried balls of light "choux" paste flavoured with vanilla; aux fleurs d'oranger, they are flavoured with orange-flower water. aux confitures are served with preserve; à la crème—with cream; au chocolat—with chocolate sauce.
Crêpes are pancakes. aux confitures are spread with preserve and rolled. au riz are made of rice with sugar, cream, eggs, etc.
Crêpes à la Française are folded over preserve.
They are sometimes baked, and served in a pile, with layers of jam between them. à la Bengale are rice pancakes folded over preserve.
This page is a glossary, not a recipe. It lists the names a cook or a menu-writer needed for fried sweets, and the whole chapter assumes a deep pan of fat standing ready in the kitchen.
- Beignet means fritterEvery entry here is something dipped in batter and fried. English has since narrowed the word to the New Orleans square of fried dough, which is a different thing — a yeasted doughnut. Nothing on this page is that.
- EntremetsThe heading partway down marks a change of course, not a change of method. An entremets was a dish set out between the heavier courses, which is why the same fritters appear twice under two sets of names.
- Beignets soufflés are chouxThese are not battered fruit at all. A spoonful of choux paste dropped into fat puffs hollow and roughly doubles, which is why the page calls for small balls. Fry them cooler and longer than a fritter, or the shell sets before the inside has risen.
- Elder flowersTake only the flowerheads and strip them from the green stalks before battering. The green parts of elder are not for eating; the flowers are the one part of the plant this recipe wants.
- Cream cheeseIn the Chantilly batter this means a fresh soft curd cheese drained in a cloth — closer to a dry fromage blanc or a drained ricotta than to the firm packaged brick now sold under that name.
- Brandy and wine do not cook offSeveral of these are bread, cake or fruit soaked in spirits and then fried for a minute or two. Very little of the alcohol leaves in that time, which is worth knowing before the dish goes to a table that includes children.
This is a page from a book that exists to help someone order dinner rather than cook it. The names are the point: a hostess or a cook-housekeeper faced a kitchen that worked in French and a menu card that had to be written in it, and she needed to know that beignets de Cintra would arrive as fried slices of cake soaked in cream. The run of names here — à l’Allemande, à la Prussienne, à l’Espagnole, à la Portugaise, à la Bengale — follows the kitchen habit of fixing a particular treatment to a nationality and then using the nationality as shorthand, so that the whole difference between the German fritter and the Prussian one is brioche paste against puff paste and nothing else at all.