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Madeline Cherries
Take some Madeleine cakes and scoop them out to form baskets. Fill these with stoned cherries both white and black that you have soaked in a good liqueur--cherry brandy is the best but you may use maraschino. Place two long strips of angelica across the top and where these intersect a very fine stoned cherry.
A three-minute assembly dessert that depends entirely on the quality of its four components. The only real work is hollowing the cakes without cracking them and getting the cherries soaked far enough ahead.
- The cakes are not today's shell madeleinesThe cakes are probably not today's shell madeleines -- English and some Continental cookery of the period also used the name for a small deep cake baked in a dariole or fluted mould, which would make it easy to scoop into a basket, though the shell-shaped madeleine was already standard in France. Bake madeleine batter in a muffin tin or dariole moulds and hollow the tops with a teaspoon, leaving walls about half an inch thick.
- "Stoned" means pittedA hand cherry pitter keeps the fruit whole, which matters here since the cherries are the visible filling and the crowning one is meant to look perfect. A piping tip or a sturdy hairpin works if you have no pitter.
- White and black cherriesThe contrast wanted is between a pale-fleshed cherry such as Napoleon or Royal Ann and a dark one such as Bing or a Belgian morello. Out of season, drained good-quality bottled cherries in syrup take the liqueur perfectly well; canned pie filling does not.
- Cherry brandy is not kirschIn British usage of the period "cherry brandy" generally meant a sweetened dark cherry liqueur of the Heering type rather than the clear dry cherry eau-de-vie. Kirsch will work but the result is much drier, so add a spoonful of syrup if you use it.
- Soaking timeTwo to four hours in the liqueur is enough for fresh cherries to take flavour without collapsing; overnight in the refrigerator is fine for firm ones. Drain them well before filling, or the cake walls turn to paste.
- AngelicaCandied stems of Angelica archangelica, once a standard confectioner's green. It is now a specialty item sold by baking suppliers; thin strips of candied green citron peel or candied melon give the same effect. Cut the strips with a sharp knife into even ribbons about an eighth of an inch wide.
- Assemble lateThe recipe gives no standing time. Fill and decorate within half an hour of serving, otherwise the liqueur soaks through and the baskets slump.
- YieldCount one cake per person for a light dessert, two if serving after a plain meal. A spoonful of the soaking liqueur poured over each at the table would suit the dish, though the recipe does not call for it.
The Belgian Cook Book was compiled by Mrs. Brian Luck in 1915 from recipes contributed by Belgian refugees who had fled to Britain after the German invasion, and it was sold in aid of relief funds. That origin explains the register of a dish like this: it is not wartime food at all but a confectioner's fancy from a comfortable bourgeois kitchen, remembered and written down by people who had left those kitchens behind. Candied angelica arranged in crossed strips with a cherry at the intersection was a common decorative gesture in nineteenth-century European pastry work, appearing on everything from petits fours to iced cakes.