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Sweet Rissoles
Cut circles of puff paste three inches in diameter, from a sheet one-fourth-inch thick, or even thinner. Wet the edge of each circle for one-half-inch all around, lay one teaspoon of any thick, stewed fruit or marmalade on one side of the circle and fold the other half over upon this so the edges meet. Pinch the edges together so they will adhere, brush over with beaten egg and bake in a quick oven. Dust with sugar and serve.
A small turnover of puff paste with a spoonful of jam inside — simple enough that the only real variables are the thickness of the pastry, the wetness of the filling and the heat of the oven.
- "Quick oven"425–450F. Puff paste needs high heat so the water in the butter layers turns to steam before the fat melts and leaks; a moderate oven gives flat, greasy pastry.
- Thickness mattersA quarter inch is generous for a three-inch circle. Rolled thinner — closer to an eighth of an inch — the rissoles puff more evenly and the sealed edge is less likely to split.
- Keep the filling thick"Thick, stewed fruit or marmalade" is not a suggestion. Anything loose will boil, find the seam and run out onto the tray, and the escaping syrup burns hard.
- One teaspoon onlyThat is deliberate. An overfilled turnover cannot seal and will burst in the first few minutes of baking.
- SealingWater alone on the edge is the period method and works if the pastry is cold; pressing with a fork tine or a small crimp is more reliable. Chill the assembled rissoles for 15–20 minutes before they go in the oven.
- Egg washBrush the tops only. Egg that runs down the cut edge glues the layers shut and stops them rising.
- Sugar at the endDust after baking, not before — sugar applied first will scorch at this temperature.
- Timing and yieldAbout 15-20 minutes, until well risen and deep gold. A standard sheet of ready-rolled puff pastry gives something like eight or nine three-inch circles, depending on how far you re-roll the trimmings; serve warm or at room temperature.
Rissole comes into English from French, where it long meant a small parcel of forcemeat or filling enclosed in pastry and fried — usually savoury, and usually browned in deep fat, from an older root meaning reddened. By the late nineteenth century English and American cookbooks had loosened the word considerably, and a "sweet rissole" like this one is really a baked jam turnover wearing a French name. The Butterick book was published by a dressmaking-pattern company for its readers, and this recipe belongs to the familiar pattern of teaching one batch of puff paste and then finding uses for it — patty shells, tartlets and small filled pastries such as these, which use up trimmings and whatever preserves are in the cupboard.