Home › Little Cockades Garnished › Little Cockades Garnished
Little Cockades Garnished
815. Spread some puff paste, made according to Ude's receipt (par. 742), about a quarter of an inch thick; cut it with a large fluted round cutter, the same as for patties; cut a hole in the middle with a small plain round cutter, then, as quickly as possible, with the finger turn the paste so as to put the inside on the baking dish, and the outside above; put them at a great distance from each other on the baking dish, as the paste spreads sideways instead of rising; bake in a hot oven, and glaze of a good colour. When done, they represent the exact form of a cockade. Garnish with fillets of sweetmeat, to represent the plaits of the cockade.
A decorative puff-pastry ring that is deliberately made to spread flat rather than rise, so it finishes as a broad fluted rosette. Everything depends on one counter-intuitive step.
- The hinge: turn the ring overThe recipe has you flip each ring, as quickly as possible, so that the face that was uppermost sits against the baking dish. The paste is expected to spread sideways instead of rising.
- Ude's puff pasteThe cross-reference is to the puff paste receipt given elsewhere in the volume under Louis Eustache Ude's name. Any full puff pastry will behave much the same way; all-butter bought puff is a fair substitute.
- Cutter sizesThe recipe says only a large fluted cutter, as for patties, with a small plain cutter for the centre; something like 3 inches and 1 inch will give a ring wide enough to hold its shape once it spreads. Press straight down without twisting.
- Keep it coldRoll to a good 6 mm (the quarter-inch of the original) and cut; chilling the rings before baking will help. Warm paste slumps into a shapeless blob instead of opening into even flutes.
- A hot ovenRead this as 425-450F (220-230C). Anything cooler and the butter leaks out before the layers set.
- SpacingBecause these expand outward, set them well apart on the sheet, as the recipe insists. No baking time is given; work to colour.
- GlazeThe recipe says only to glaze of a good colour and does not say with what. If you take it as a sweet finish, dust with icing sugar towards the end of baking and return the rings to the top of the oven until the sugar catches colour; watch continuously, as sugar goes from glossy to burnt in under a minute.
- Fillets of sweetmeatCandied citron, orange peel or angelica cut into narrow strips, laid across the ring in radiating lines to suggest the pleats of ribbon. Add them after baking so they do not scorch.
- ServingThese are a garnish or a dessert-table conceit rather than a filled pastry. They stale quickly and are best eaten the day they are baked.