Home › The Waldorf Kitchen › Pear Tartlets
Pear Tartlets
Roll out eight ounces of puff paste twelve inches long by eight inches wide, cut it in six pieces with a cutter, arrange them on six scalloped tart-pans three and one-half inches wide, and press down the paste at the bottom and sides so as to have the impression of the moulds, but without touching the rim, which will rise considerably when baked. Mask them with three ounces of apple marmalade equally divided; on top of this put half a large pear, dust them over with pounded sugar, put them on a baking-sheet and bake in a moderate oven for twenty minutes. Bring them to the oven door, dust the edges over lightly with more powdered sugar, melt this in the oven for about two minutes, take them out and let them cool. Spread over each a little apple jelly, turn them out carefully on a napkin spread over a dish, and serve.
A straightforward French pastry-shop tartlet as it was made in a hotel kitchen: puff paste, a bed of thick apple purée, half a pear, a sugar glaze. Two things in the original are not spelled out — the state of the pear and what "powdered sugar" meant in 1896.
- The pear must be cooked firstThe pear was very likely cooked first -- the recipe does not say. A firm raw half may not soften fully in twenty minutes at moderate heat, and it can weep into the pastry. Pear halves poached in light syrup until just tender and drained well, or good canned halves patted dry, are the safer choice. Score or fan the cut side lightly so the top browns evenly.
- Moderate ovenNo temperature is given; the term is conventionally read as somewhere around 350-375F. Puff paste lifts better from a hot start, so bake on a preheated sheet in the lower-middle of the oven; if the rims are pale at twenty minutes give them a few more rather than raising the heat late.
- Apple marmaladeNot citrus marmalade — a thick, sweetened apple purée, closer to what is sold as apple butter, and thick enough to hold a spoon upright. Loose applesauce will soak the base. Three ounces divided over six tarts is about a scant tablespoon each.
- Pounded and powdered sugarBoth mean sugar ground fine in the period, not modern cornstarch-blended confectioners' sugar. Caster or superfine sugar is the right substitute; the second dusting is meant to melt to a thin glaze in two minutes at the oven mouth, which cornstarch sugar will not do cleanly.
- Pressing the pasteThe instruction to leave the rim untouched is the hinge of the recipe. Press the paste firmly into the base and flutes but do not crimp or crush the top edge, or the layers seal and the collar will not rise.
- Tart pansScalloped 3½-inch tartlet moulds, roughly a standard fluted tartlet tin. Six pieces from an 8 oz block rolled to 12 by 8 inches works out to about ⅛ inch thick, which is thin.
- The apple jelly finishThe recipe has the tarts cooled before the jelly goes on. Warm the jelly until just pourable and brush it over; it sets as a clear glaze. Then turn them out onto the napkin carefully, or the bases tear.
- YieldSix tartlets, one per person, served the same day. Puff paste bases go leathery overnight once glazed and filled.
Oscar Tschirky came to the Waldorf in 1893 as maître d'hôtel and put his name to this collection in 1896, at a point when the grand New York hotels were staffed and organised on French lines — which is why a tartlet recipe here reads like a page from a pâtisserie manual, down to the verb "mask" for spreading a base layer. The apple purée underneath is probably not decoration but insurance: one would expect fruit tarts made to be held through a long service to want something between the wet fruit and the pastry, and a stiff apple marmalade both absorbs juice and sweetens a pear that may have been poached only lightly. The apple jelly brushed over the top does the same work from above, sealing the fruit so it neither dries nor darkens on the sideboard. The choice of halves rather than slices shows the dish off as a plated dessert rather than a slab tart to be cut.