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Pancakes
Mix two teaspoonfuls of flour with a little salt. Beat the yolks of four eggs and the whites of two, add a few drops of orange-flower water, and then stir this in with the flour. Butter a small omelet pan, and when hot, pour in a small quantity of the batter, bake until brown, then turn and brown the other side. Roll up the pancake, put it on a hot dish, and keep near the fire till all are made. Arrange them on an ornamental dish-paper on a hot dish, sprinkle a little sugar over, and serve.
A very thin, eggy pancake in the French style rather than the American — no leavening, no milk, and barely any flour. A few things in the wording need translating before you stand at the stove.
- The flour quantity is almost certainly wrongThe flour quantity looks low -- two teaspoons of flour to four egg yolks and two whites gives something closer to a loose omelet than a pancake batter. Comparable batters of the period often call for tablespoonfuls rather than teaspoonfuls, so the printed figure may be an error. Treat it as suspect rather than as a target.
- There is no liquidUnlike a crêpe batter, this one relies entirely on the eggs for its moisture, which is why the pan must be small and the layer thin. If the batter will not flow to coat the pan, a spoonful of milk or water loosens it without changing the character of the dish.
- Orange-flower waterDistilled orange blossom water, sold in Middle Eastern groceries and in the baking aisle. It is potent and varies in strength between brands; a few drops means a few drops, and a teaspoon will make the whole batch taste of soap.
- "Bake" means fryNineteenth-century usage: to bake a pancake is to cook it in the pan. Nothing goes in the oven here.
- The panA small omelet pan is roughly six to seven inches across the base, well seasoned or nonstick. Butter it lightly and keep the heat at medium -- the eggs color fast, and a hot pan gives you brown spots before the center is set.
- Keeping them warm"Near the fire" means simply somewhere gently warm; the modern equivalent is an oven at its lowest setting, with the rolled pancakes on a plate under a cloth or loose foil. They are best served soon after they are made.
- YieldFour yolks and two whites make roughly six to eight small pancakes — one modest dessert serving for two, or a light course for four.
- The dish-paperAn ornamental dish-paper is a doily, laid on the platter for presentation. Purely decorative; skip it or keep it as you like.
Oscar Tschirky's book collects the repertoire of a hotel kitchen that was, in the 1890s, resolutely French in its technique whatever the menu said in English. This is not the American breakfast pancake raised with baking powder and eaten with syrup ake of the French desserthin sweet pancake of the French dessert course, rolled, dusted with sugar and sent out on a doily, a relative of the crêpes that would later appear in restaurant dining rooms. The orange-flower water is the giveaway. Distilled from bitter orange blossoms and long a staple of French and Mediterranean confectionery, it was one of the common perfumes for sweet batters, custards and small cakes alongside rose water, lemon, brandy and spices before vanilla extract became cheap and universal, and its presence here places the recipe squarely in the older pastry tradition the Waldorf's kitchen had inherited.