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Cakes and Pastry: Petits
Petits gâteaux d'abricots are square pieces of puff paste folded over apricot marmalade. à la Polonaise are little folded envelopes of puff paste, garnished with red currant jelly.
Eventail aux cerises-fan-shaped strips of puff pastry on a border of apple marmalade with stewed cherries in the centre.
Petits vol-au-vents à la Chantilly are little vol-auvents of puff pastry filled with marmalade and Chantilly cream. These are sometimes called Puits d'amours. à la gelée mousseuse are covered with chopped sugar coloured red, and filled with Maraschino jelly whipped to a froth. As Petits puits aux pistaches they are covered with chopped pistachio nuts and sugar, and filled with whipped cream.
Pâtisserie à la tartine-sandwiches of puff pastry and jam.
Gaufres à la Française are wafers made of a batter of flour, sugar, whipped cream, eggs, etc., baked in gauffre irons. à l'Allemande, à la Flamande, and de Carlsbad, are varieties of the French wafers. aux amandes are almond wafers baked in thin pieces, coiled round and filled with whipped cream.
Suédoises à la crème a batter of flour, sugar, almonds, etc., baked in small balls, and served with whipped cream.
Petits choux are Spanish cakes made of a batter of flour, butter, eggs, sugar, etc., baked in small balls. They are served aux amandes, or à la crème, covered with chopped almonds and sugar, or filled with cream; au caramel, they are dipped in boiled sugar and covered with chopped pistachio nuts and sugar. à l'Espagnole are fried in the shape of small balls. These are sometimes called Soupirs, or Pets, de nonne. à la comtesse are baked in finger-shaped pieces and filled with cream. If masked with chocolate or coffee icing, they are called Éclairs au chocolat or au café. en gimblettes are deep rings of the paste covered with chopped pistachio nuts and sugar. au chevalier are made in the shape of horseshoes, filled with cream and decorated with vanilla and coffee icing.
ENTREMETS Petits pains de la Mecque, or Mecca loaves, are small oval cakes made of the same paste with the addition of whipped cream; sprinkled with chopped sugar. Flavoured with lemon, they are called Petits pains de la Mecque au citron.
Profiteroles au chocolat are small oval cakes of milk, butter, sugar, eggs, etc.; served with chocolate sauce.
Gâteaux fourrés aux confitures are jam turnovers or puffs. fourrés à la crème are turnovers or puffs filled with frangipane. fourrés de pommes à la Parisienne are turnovers filled with stewed apples and apricot marmalade. d'Artois, or à la Manon, are covered puff paste tarts or tartlets filled with any kind of preserve. They may be called D'Artois aux abricots, etc., according to the jam with which they are filled. Au chocolat, they are filled with a chocolate custard.
Mince pies are called Pâtés d'émincé.
Small balls of mincemeat, coated with crushed ratafias, and with chopped citron and cocoanut, are called Ballotines de Noël en surprise.
Petits cannelons à la Châteaubriand are little strips of puff pastry spread with mincemeat and rolled.
Cannelons à la crème are rolled strips of pastry filled with cream. Rolled pieces of crisp gingerbread, known as Brandy snaps, are often used for this dish.
Cannelons de Moka are made with coffee pastry.
Tartlets are filled with any kind of preserve, and take their name from it-as Tartelettes de fraises, aux cerises, aux prunes, etc.; à la vanille, they are filled with pounded almonds, vanilla sugar, whipped whites of eggs, etc.
Tartelettes de crème à la Frangipane are filled with frangipane. à la Mosaïque are filled with preserve, and covered with a mosaic of paste. à la Pompadour are filled with a ball of brioche paste folded over apricot or other marmalade, and sprinkled with sugar. à la Princesse are filled with preserve, meringued over, and covered with coffee icing. à la Mikado are filled with an almond custard with raisins or dried cherries.
Dauphines are tartlets filled with preserve, with custard over it, and meringue mixture piled on the top.
Fanchonettes are tartlets filled with custard, meringued over, and the tops ornamented with little miniature meringues. In Fanchonettes à la vanille the custard is flavoured with vanilla.
Mirlitons aux fleurs d'oranger are tartlets filled with a batter of eggs, sugar, butter, pounded macaroons, candied orange flowers, etc. They are flavoured in various ways-aux amandes, with almonds instead of the orange flowers ; or au chocolat, with chocolate. Aux confitures, ENTREMETS. they are half filled with jam before the batter is put in.
Talmouses are cheese-cakes. au citron-lemon cheese-cakes. aux amandes-almond cheese-cakes. aux oranges are made of pounded almonds, orange-flower water, sugar, butter and eggs, with orange marmalade. aux confitures are cheese-cakes with jam. à la crème are cream tartlets-filled with custard. aux abricots à la crème are filled with preserved apricots and covered with cream. aux fruits are filled with any kind of preserved fruit.
Of the fruit tarts there are :- Tarte aux abricots - -- apricots; aux prunes plums; aux reine-Claudes greengages; de pêches -peaches; de pommes-apples; de pommes aux coings-apple with quince; de poires-pears; de framboises et groseilles raspberries and currants; de groseilles, vertes or a maquereau-green gooseberries; de groseilles-currants; de cassis-black currants; de raisins verts-green grapes; de cerises -cherries; de rhubarberhubarb.
Tourte à la crème d'amandes is an open tart filled with almond cream. à la frangipane is an open tart filled with frangipane-a custard of flour, eggs, cream, butter, etc. à la Française consists of alternate layers of light pastry and jam, covered with meringue.
Flan de poires, de cerises, de fraises, etc., are open fruit tarts. d'oranges is an open tart filled with stewed oranges. d'abricots à l'Allemande-an open tart filled with apricots, and apricot marmalade over them. d'abricots à la Metternich is filled with apricots and cherries, and the pounded kernels with cream on the top. de pommes à l'Écossaise is filled with stewed apples, covered with orange marmalade. d'amandes à la d'Escars is filled with a custard of green almonds with candied orange flowers, yolks of eggs, cream, etc. This is also made with filberts. à la crème pralinée is filled with custard, and is sprinkled with sugar and glazed.
Fleur de pêches, etc., is also an open tart, baked in a "fleur" ring; de groseilles à la crème is filled with stewed gooseberries with cream or custard. de pommes à la Suède is filled with a purée of apples with shreds of orange peel and burnt almonds, and is covered with meringue. à la Meringue is filled with layers of custard and jam, and covered with meringue. à l'Allemande is filled with stewed fruit and custard.
Little open tarts or tartlets are sometimes called Petits fleurs, as Petits fleurs aux fraises for strawberry tartlets. ENTREMETS.
Pommes en croustade, or Croustade de pommes à l'Impériale, is a baked shape of paste filled with apple marmalade and garnished with dried cherries, etc.
Apple dumplings are called Dumplings aux pommes.
A jam roll in suet crust, boiled or baked, is called Cannelon aux confitures.
PUDDINGS.
This is not a recipe page. It is the book’s dictionary of pastry names, written so a hostess could put the right French on a menu card and know what would arrive on the plate.
- No quantities anywhereEvery line here is a definition rather than a method. Treat the page as a naming key and get the actual pastry from a pastry book; nothing on it can be made from what is printed.
- One paste, many namesMost of this list is two or three doughs. Puff paste and choux paste account for nearly all of it, and what changes is the shape and the filling. The éclairs, the deep rings called gimblettes, the horseshoes au chevalier and the fried balls are all the same choux.
- Marmalade did not mean orangeApricot marmalade, apple marmalade: in this book marmalade is a stiff reduced fruit paste used as a filling or a base, closer to a thick jam or a fruit butter than to the orange preserve the word means now.
- Gauffre ironsGaufres are thin wafers baked between hinged plates on the stove. A pizzelle or krumkake iron is the surviving equivalent; a deep waffle iron is not, because the batter is thin and the point is a crisp sheet you can coil while it is still warm.
- RatafiasSeveral fillings call for crushed ratafias, which are small bitter-almond macaroons. They are still made, and amaretti are the same object under another name, but no supermarket sells them under the book’s word.
- The book allows shop-boughtFor cannelons à la crème the page says rolled brandy snaps are often used instead of rolled pastry. Bought components were not beneath a formal menu, and the admission is printed without embarrassment.
The book is organised by course and its business is translation: it takes what the kitchen can do and gives it back in the French that goes on a menu card. That tells you who owned it. This was a household with a cook capable of turning out petits fours, and a mistress who had to name them correctly in front of guests without having made any of them. The anxiety being answered is social, not culinary. You can see the author managing it directly in two places on this page: the little vol-au-vents filled with cream, she notes, are sometimes called wells of love, and the fried choux balls go under a polite name meaning nuns’ sighs as well as a blunter one she prints and leaves alone. She gives both and lets the reader decide what to write down.