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Cherry Tartlets
Line six or eight scalloped tart-moulds with one-half pound of puff-paste, press down the bottom and the sides to get the impression of the moulds, mask them with three ounces of apple marmalade spread equally over this, throw in one pound of stoned cherries, sprinkle them with powdered loaf-sugar, and bake in a medium oven for twenty minutes. Sprinkle more powdered sugar on the edges and melt or glaze it in the oven for two minutes; then remove the tartlets and let them get cool. Turn them out of the moulds, cover with a thin coating of apple-jelly, and serve on a dish with an ornamental dish-paper or a folded napkin.
A straightforward French-style tartlet from Oscar's pastry section, written for cooks who already had puff paste and apple marmalade on hand. Two details in it do most of the work: the apple layer and the sugar glaze.
- The apple layer is the hingeThe three ounces of apple marmalade goes under the fruit, and a layer of fruit paste in this position generally works to absorb juice and keep the puff paste from going sodden. Spread it equally over the pastry, as instructed, rather than thinning it out.
- Apple marmaladeIn this period that means apples cooked down to a thick, stiff purée, sweetened and reduced until it holds a shape on the spoon — no citrus involved. A very thick apple butter is the nearest thing on a shop shelf; ordinary apple sauce is too wet.
- "Medium oven"Roughly 350-375F. Puff paste needs real heat to lift, and the wet cherries work against that, so bake on a preheated baking sheet and check that the base has set and coloured before trusting the twenty minutes.
- Powdered loaf sugarLoaf sugar was a hard cone or block, crushed and sifted for use; the result is closest to modern caster or superfine sugar. Use that rather than confectioners' sugar, which contains cornstarch and will go chalky under heat.
- The glazeTwo minutes in the oven melts the sugar on the pastry rims to a thin caramel. A broiler set high does the same faster, but sugar goes from glossy to burnt in well under a minute, so watch it rather than time it.
- MouldsScalloped tart-moulds are small fluted tartlet tins. Half a pound of puff paste lining six to eight of them means a thin lining, so roll thin and press well into the flutes.
- CherriesThe recipe specifies only stoned cherries; the sprinkled sugar suits a sour variety such as morello, which holds its shape and acidity. Sweet cherries work but reduce the sprinkled sugar.
- UnmouldingCool the tartlets in the tins as directed. Turned out warm, the juice-softened bases tear. The final apple-jelly coating should be melted just to brushing consistency and applied when the tartlets are cool.
- YieldSix to eight tartlets, one per person as a dessert course.
Oscar Tschirky was the Waldorf's maître d'hôtel rather than its chef, but the 1896 volume that carries his name gathers the hotel's working kitchen repertoire, and the pastry pages are frankly French — tartlets lined in fluted moulds, masked with a fruit paste, finished with a jelly glaze, and sent out on a folded napkin or a cut-paper doily. The masking layer of apple is often explained as a way of keeping a wet fruit from sitting directly on puff paste and collapsing it, though how routinely it was used is not documented. Loaf sugar, pounded and sifted for this kind of finishing work, was still to be found in American kitchens of the 1890s, by which time granulated and powdered sugars sold in paper bags had largely displaced it.