Cocoanut Tea Cakes

A pastry-scrap recipe rather than a pie: strips of puff or short paste glazed with egg white and finished with coconut. The whole thing hinges on the two-stage bake, which is the only reason the coconut does not scorch.

• "Hot oven"Farmer gives no temperatures; the book works by oven feel rather than numbers. A hot oven is generally read today as somewhere around 425-450F. Puff paste needs the high heat to lift; plain (short) paste will take the lower end of that range.
• The two-stage bakeThe recipe says to pull the cakes when nearly done, before the glaze and coconut go on; they then need only long enough to set the glaze and toast lightly. Coconut colours very quickly in a hot oven, which is why it is added late.
• Lady-finger cutterA small oval cutter of roughly finger size. A fluted oval, or strips cut with a knife to the same size, gives the same result.
• CocoanutThe shredded desiccated coconut sold in this period was typically unsweetened and finer than modern sweetened flake. Unsweetened shredded or flaked coconut is the closer match; sweetened bagged coconut will brown much faster and taste noticeably different.
• Plain pasteFarmer's "plain paste" is a pie crust of flour, fat, salt and ice water — a standard all-butter or lard shortcrust. Either paste works; puff gives leaf-like layers, plain gives a crisper biscuit.
• The egg whiteBeat it only until loose and frothy, not stiff. Its job is glue and gloss; a stiff meringue will sit in lumps and set spongy.
• Tin sheetA plain baking sheet; the recipe does not say to grease it. Parchment makes lifting the fragile cakes off easier, and catches the coconut that inevitably falls.
• YieldThe recipe gives no quantities, so the number depends entirely on how much paste is rolled. Best the day they are made; the coconut goes soft overnight.