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Apricot Cakes
Roll out a piece of puff-paste or trimmings, and spread over a baking-sheet, first winding it on a rolling-pin and then unwinding. Spread some apricot marmalade evenly all over the paste. Then cut some of the rolled paste into thin narrow strips and roll it like a cord. Arrange these strips over the marmalade, finishing off the ends and soldering to the edge of the paste by moistening with water. Lay icing sugar along the bars in some fancy designs and bake in a moderately hot oven. When done, cut into oblong pieces, say two by three inches and pile one upon another on a dish decorated with almonds cut into various shapes and colored.
A lattice-topped apricot slice built on a sheet of puff pastry — essentially a large jalousie cut into bars after baking. The instructions assume a cook who already has puff paste and apricot marmalade on hand.
- Moderately hot ovenRoughly 375-400F; period ranges put "moderately hot" a step below a quick or hot oven. Puff paste wants a good initial heat to lift; too slack an oven and the butter tends to leak out, leaving the layers greasy rather than flaky.
- Puff-paste or trimmingsTrimmings are the offcuts from other pastry work, re-stacked rather than balled up so the layers survive. A 1 lb block of all-butter frozen puff pastry rolled to about 1/8 inch fills a standard half-sheet pan.
- Winding on the rolling-pinThis is just the transfer method — drape the rolled sheet over the pin and unroll it onto the sheet. It remains the least destructive way to move thin pastry.
- Apricot marmaladeIn this period that means a thick apricot preserve or reduced apricot puree, not citrus marmalade. Modern jam is looser and wetter; boil it down or use a thick apricot butter, or the filling will run under the lattice and soak the base.
- Soldering the endsOscar's term for sealing. Brush the pastry with water, press the ends of each cord firmly to the border, and chill the whole sheet 20–30 minutes before baking so the strips do not slide or shrink away.
- Icing sugar along the barsConfectioners' sugar dusted onto the pastry strips, which caramelises to a glaze in the oven. Dust lightly and only on the lattice, not the fruit, or it will scorch.
- CuttingLet the sheet cool at least to warm before cutting into 2x3 inch pieces; a serrated knife with a sawing motion keeps the lattice from crushing.
- The colored almondsBlanched almonds cut into diamonds and leaves, tinted with food coloring — a standard Victorian garnish. Purely decorative and easily left off.
Oscar Tschirky's 1896 volume was assembled from the working repertoire of a New York hotel kitchen run on French lines, and this is a plain French pastry-shop item: a *jalousie*, the name coming from the French for a louvred shutter, whose slats the strips of paste over the fruit resemble. Sheets like this were one obvious use for puff-paste trimmings, which a hotel pastry department would generate in quantity from vol-au-vents and patty cases; re-rolled scraps will not rise evenly enough for a shell but do well enough flat under fruit. Apricot was a favoured hotel preserve of the period — it holds its color, sets firmly, and was also brushed over cakes as a glaze. The finishing touch, colored almonds cut into shapes and the pieces piled up on a dish, belongs to a moment when a dessert was expected to be architecture as much as food.