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Cannelons of Fruit
Proceed as if for apple turnovers, but cut the sheet of paste into squares. Place a spoonful of any kind of firm fruit jelly lengthwise and roll up the piece of paste so to cover and inclose it. The word cannelon, like cane, signifies a tube with a pith in it. Egg over, dredge with sugar and bake.
A shorthand entry that assumes you have already read the turnover recipe a few pages earlier: the pastry, the egg wash and the oven are all taken for granted. The points below fill in what the author left unsaid.
- The paste"Proceed as if for apple turnovers" sends you back to the turnover recipe for the paste, which in books of this kind is usually a puff or puff-trimmings paste, though this entry does not say so. Frozen all-butter puff pastry works; roll it slightly thinner than it comes and cut squares of 4 to 5 inches.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven direction beyond "bake." Puff paste for small pastries wants 400-425F; bake 18-22 minutes, until the layers are set and coloured through rather than merely browned on top.
- Why jelly and not jamThe instruction to use firm fruit jelly is the hinge. A set jelly holds its shape long enough for the pastry to build structure around it; loose jam or fresh fruit releases water, steams the seam open and runs out onto the pan. Use no more than a rounded teaspoon per cannelon.
- Rolling and sealingLay the jelly in a line along one edge, leaving a clear inch at each end, then roll up and pinch the ends closed. Set the rolls seam side down. A quick chill in the refrigerator before baking firms the butter and gives a better lift.
- Egg overEgg wash: a whole egg beaten with a spoonful of water or milk, brushed thinly. Keep it off the cut ends, where it glues the layers shut.
- Dredging with sugarGranulated sugar dredged on before baking gives a crackled glaze but scorches if the oven runs hot; if that happens, dredge instead in the last five minutes, or dust with confectioner's sugar after cooling.
- Yield and servingA standard sheet of puff pastry gives six to nine cannelons. Serve warm or at room temperature, the same day; the jelly weeps and softens the pastry overnight.
Cannelon comes into English cookery from the French canne/cannelle, a reed or little tube, ultimately from the Latin canna; the same root gives cannelloni and the cinnamon quill called cannelle — all named for being tube-shaped. The author's aside that the word "signifies a tube with a pith in it" is the kind of gloss that explains the French names on the bill of fare. Cannelons appear in savoury form as well, as rolled forcemeat or veal, and the pastry version here is essentially a turnover reshaped for variety: the same paste, the same egg wash and sugar, differently cut. That economy is the point of a book like this one.