Flowers, Almond
INGREDIENTS. -Puff-paste; to every lb. of paste allow an egg.
Roll the paste out to the thickness of inch, and, with a round fluted cutter, stamp out as many pieces as may be required Work the paste up again, roll it out, and, with a smaller cutter, stamp out some pieces the size of a shilling. Brush the larger pieces over with the white of an egg, and place one of the smaller pieces on each.
Blanch and cut the almonds into strips lengthwise; press them slanting into the paste closely round the rings; and when they are all completed, sift over some pounded sugar, and bake for about 1/4 hour or twenty minutes. Garnish between the almonds with strips of apple jelly, and place in centre of the ring a small quantity of gooseberry jam; pile them high on the dish and serve. —Puff-paste; to every 1/2 lb. of paste allow 3 oz. of almonds, sifted sugar, the white of an egg.
TIME.-1/4 hour or 20 minutes.
SEASONABLE at any time.
A puff-paste fancy built like a flower: a fluted base, a smaller disc stuck on top, blanched almonds pressed in slanting to form petals, then jelly and jam in the centre. Two of the measurements have been mangled by the printing, so read them as fractions.
- The missing fractions"The thickness of inch" and "1 hour or twenty minutes" are both dropped fractions in the original setting. Read them as about 1/4 inch thick and 1/4 hour or twenty minutes, i.e. 15-20 minutes, which is right for a small puff-paste round. A full hour would burn them to charcoal.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given; the recipe leaves the oven to the cook's judgement. Puff paste is generally baked hot, around 425-450F, so the layers set and lift before the butter can leak out; a cooler oven tends to give flat, greasy biscuits.
- AlmondsThe quantity is omitted from the ingredient list. Reckon roughly 3-4 oz of whole blanched almonds per pound of paste. Blanching means a minute in boiling water, then slipping off the skins; cut them lengthwise while still damp and warm or they split short and crumble.
- Size of a shillingA pre-decimal shilling was about 1 inch across, so the inner disc is roughly an inch, sitting on a fluted base of perhaps 2 to 2 1/2 inches. The ring of exposed base between the two is where the almonds go.
- Egg white as glueThe "egg to every lb. of paste" is not enrichment in the dough; the white is brushed on to cement the small disc to the large one and to hold the almonds. The recipe directs brushing the larger pieces over, though egg white on the cut edges of puff paste can seal them and check the rise.
- Pounded sugarPounded sugar is loaf sugar crushed fine; caster sugar is the nearest modern equivalent. Sift it on lightly just before baking; too heavy a dusting caramelises and darkens the almonds before the pastry is through.
- Fill after bakingThe apple jelly and gooseberry jam go on cold pastry, not into the oven. Warm the jelly slightly so it can be dropped in neat strips between the almond petals, then set it in the refrigerator before piling the flowers up on the dish.
- YieldA pound of puff paste, worked up twice as directed, gives around 18 to 24 flowers depending on your cutters. They are best the day they are baked; the jam softens the pastry overnight.
Small almond-set puff-paste confections like these belong to the Victorian dessert service rather than the dinner proper: a plate of "pretty dishes" piled high, meant to be looked at as much as eaten, alongside jellies, creams and fresh fruit. The name simply describes the shape, a technique of pressing split blanched almonds into pastry or icing to imitate petals that recurs through nineteenth-century confectionery, much of which drew on French patisserie practice. Apple jelly and gooseberry jam are both pectin-rich English preserves, and the recipe is marked seasonable at any time.