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French Confectioner
Cool milk; when lukewarm, add yeast cakes, and when they are dissolved add remaining ingredients, and beat thoroughly with hand ten minutes; let rise six hours. Keep in ice-box over night; in morning turn on floured board, roll in long rectangular piece one-fourth inch thick; spread with softened butter, fold from sides toward centre to make three layers. Cut off pieces three-fourths inch wide; cover and let rise. Take each piece separately in hands and twist from ends in opposite directions, coil and bring ends together at top of cake. Let rise in pans and bake twenty minutes in a moderate oven; cool and brush over with confectioners' sugar, moistened with boiling water to spread, and flavored with vanilla.
A laminated, refrigerated sweet dough of the kind American cookbooks of the period filed under "French" or "Danish" pastry. The method is complete; the ingredient list belongs to the head of the entry and is not reproduced here, so read the notes below before shopping.
- The missing ingredientsOnly milk, yeast cakes, butter and the sugar glaze are named in the working text; the rest are covered by "remaining ingredients" and sit in the ingredient list above the method in the original book. Do not attempt to reverse-engineer them from the instructions alone "index":1,"verdict":"hedge"} -- find the full entry first.
- Yeast cakesUsually compressed fresh yeast, sold in small cakes of about 0.6 to 2/3 oz, though dried yeast cakes were also sold under the name. A cake is roughly equivalent to a modern packet (about 2 1/4 teaspoons) of active dry or instant yeast. Fresh yeast is dissolved in the lukewarm milk; dry yeast can be stirred in the same way.
- Lukewarm means about 100FMilk hot enough to feel warm on the wrist, not hot. The instruction to cool the milk first suggests it had been scalded, as many recipes of the period directed.
- A moderate oven350F. Twenty minutes suits small coiled cakes; they are done when the layers are set and the tops are an even gold.
- The six-hour rise plus overnight chillNot a mistake. The long warm fermentation builds flavour, and the cold night firms the dough so that the butter spread on it in the morning stays in sheets rather than merging into the layers.
- The laminationOne roll, one spread of softened butter, one letter fold — three layers, no more. The butter must be spreadable but not oily, or it will soak into the dough instead of staying in sheets.
- ShapingThe strips are twisted from both ends in opposite directions, then wound into a coil with the ends tucked at the top. Handle them briefly; warm hands soften the butter and the twist loses definition.
- The glazeConfectioners' sugar slaked with boiling water to a consistency loose enough to spread, and flavoured with vanilla. The recipe directs that the cakes be cooled before the glaze is brushed on.
- YieldThe original gives none, and none can be worked out from the method alone, since the quantities sit in the ingredient list above.
Early twentieth-century American cookbooks used "French" loosely as a label for anything laminated, glazed and bakery-looking, and the name here says more about aspiration than origin u2014 the technique of folding butter into a yeasted dough and shaping it into twists and coils is the one now generally associated with Danish pastry. What dates the recipe precisely is the equipment: compressed yeast cakes, sold fresh and perishable, and an ice-box rather than a refrigerator, which is why the dough goes in overnight and comes out in the morning. The long six-hour rise reflects both the yeast available and a household rhythm in which bread-making was scheduled around the day rather than squeezed into it.