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Fancy Tartlets
Remove the peels and cores from half a dozen large cooking-apples, cut them into slices, put them in a stewpan with six tablespoonfuls of crushed loaf-sugar, half a stick of cinnamon, three or four cloves, a thin slice of lemon-peel and a little water. Stew the apples over a gentle fire until they are tender. When cooked, pass them through a fine wire-sieve. Beat three fresh eggs well, mix with them four crushed stale sponge cakes, two tablespoonfuls of sugar and three ounces of warmed butter and beat the mixture well. Butter and line some pattypans with a rich tart paste, half fill each one with the apple-paste, spread the cake mixture on the top and bake the tarts in a moderate oven until they are nicely browned. When cooked, remove them from their tins, arrange them on a dish over which has been spread a folded napkin or piece of ornamental dish-paper, and serve.
A two-layer apple tartlet: a spiced apple purée below, a sponge-and-egg batter above that bakes into a soft custardy cap. The one thing that decides whether they work is the moisture of the apple layer.
- Cook the apples dry"A little water" means a few tablespoons, only enough to stop scorching before the apples release their own juice. After sieving, the purée should hold a spoon-track; if it is loose, return it to the pan and reduce it, or the sponge topping will sit on wet fruit and the pastry base will go soggy.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold as a hard cone and broken or crushed for use. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct replacement, measure for measure.
- PattypansSmall shallow tins for individual pastries, on the scale of a modern tartlet tin; small fluted tartlet tins of about 2 1/2 inches are the right sort of thing, though pattypans were generally shallower than a muffin cup.
- Moderate oven350F. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until the topping is set and evenly browned and the pastry edge is dry and pale gold.
- Rich tart pastePeriod shorthand for a sweet short pastry made with a high proportion of butter and often an egg yolk — what would now be sold as pâte sucrée or sweet shortcrust. A bought sweet shortcrust works if you are not making your own.
- Stale sponge cakesFour small plain sponge cakes, dried out and crumbled fine. Staleness matters: fresh sponge pastes into lumps rather than crumbs. Dry breadcrumb-textured sponge is what you want, and plain dry ladyfingers substitute cleanly.
- Three ounces of warmed butterMelted and cooled to just warm, not hot — poured hot into beaten eggs it will scramble them. Beat it in last, in a thin stream.
- Whole spicesCinnamon stick, cloves and lemon peel go in whole and are fished out, or caught by the sieve, before the purée is used. Ground spice muddies the colour and cannot be removed.
- Yield and servingRoughly a dozen small tartlets, depending on the size of the tins. Best warm or at room temperature the day they are made; the sponge topping stiffens overnight. They are served on a folded napkin or ornamental dish-paper in the period manner.
Oscar Tschirky was maître d'hôtel of the Waldorf, not its chef, and his 1896 book gathers the standard Franco-American repertoire a large hotel kitchen ran on rather than dishes of his own devising. The equipment vocabulary — pattypans, loaf sugar, a wire sieve for the fruit — is the ordinary furniture of a late nineteenth-century kitchen, and the instruction to serve on a folded napkin or ornamental dish-paper belongs to the dining-room side of the trade.