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Almond Shortcakes
Chop 1 pound of blanched almonds quite fine and mix with them 12 ounces of sugar and the whites of 3 eggs, making a sort of paste. A little orange or lemon zest may be added. Cover a baking pan with a thin sheet of pie paste, spread the almond paste evenly over it and cover with another thin sheet of pie paste. Egg over the top, dredge sugar over and bake in a slack oven. Cut in oblongs or squares when cold. Several of the nut creams and conserves may be used in the same way instead of the minced almonds. With a coating of icing or glaze on top the articles of this class made of pastry are found to be very saleable at the bakers' shops.
A bakery-scale almond slice: two thin sheets of short pastry with a raw marzipan-style filling baked between them. Nothing here is difficult, but the oven instruction and the sheer quantity of almonds both need translating.
- "Slack oven" means 300-325F"Slack oven" means a cool oven -- roughly 300-325F in modern terms, though the book gives no temperature and period writers often used "slack" and "slow" interchangeably. Bake around 300-325F for 35-45 minutes, until the pastry is set and pale gold. The aim is to cook the pastry through without over-colouring the almond layer.
- The proportions make about 2 lb of fillingOne pound of almonds, 12 oz sugar and three egg whites is close to a classic marzipan ratio. It will cover a half-sheet pan (roughly 13x18 inches) in a thin layer, something under a quarter-inch. Halve everything for a standard 9x13 pan.
- Use a food processor, but stop short of butter"Quite fine" in 1900 meant a long session with a chopping knife or a nut mill. Pulse the blanched almonds with some of the sugar to keep them from oiling out; you want a damp sandy meal, not almond butter.
- Egg whites go in unbeatenThey are binder, not leavening. Add them a little at a time until the mass just holds together when squeezed. Three large whites may be more than you need if your almonds are dry.
- "Pie paste" is short pastry, not puffRoll both sheets thin, around 1/8 inch. Chill the assembled pan for twenty minutes before baking so the bottom sheet does not slump under the weight of the filling.
- Dock the top sheetThe recipe does not say so, but a sealed lid over a moist filling will balloon. Prick the top all over with a fork before the egg wash goes on.
- Egg wash and sugar"Egg over" means a brushed egg wash; whole egg beaten with a little water or milk works, though the three yolks left over from the filling were an obvious candidate. Coarse or granulated sugar dredged over gives the crackle; caster sugar will mostly dissolve into the wash.
- Cut cold, and cut with a long bladeWarm, the filling drags and the pastry shatters. Let the pan go completely cold, then cut in one draw with a long knife wiped between cuts. A half-sheet gives roughly 24 to 30 bars.
- The substitutions"Nut creams and conserves" are other preparations given elsewhere in the book. Thick jam works, but use less of it -- fruit preserve is far wetter than almond paste and will soak the base.
The American Pastry Cook was written for men working a bakeshop rather than a home kitchen, which the closing line about what sells at the counter bears out. Slices of this kind -- marzipan or nut paste sandwiched in pastry, cut into oblongs cold -- run through the German and Austrian baking tradition, which was an influence on the American commercial trade in the later nineteenth century. The filling itself is essentially marzipan, generally traced to the almond-and-sugar confections of the medieval Mediterranean. Almonds were not cheap, and the recipe offers nut creams and conserves as alternatives in the same construction. The closing suggestion of icing or glaze is a retail note: the same goods finished two ways.