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Pineapple Crusts
Place in a basin one pound of the best sifted flour, make a hollow in the center and put in it half an ounce of German yeast and a tablespoonful of warmed milk. Stir in sufficient amount of flour to form a sponge, then set it to rise in a warm place. When it has risen to twice its original size, work in the remainder of the flour a teacupful of tepid milk and a couple of eggs; then add another egg, three-quarters of a pound of butter beaten until creamy, with a tablespoonful of caster sugar, a little salt and half a teacupful of warm milk; work the paste thoroughly and add eight more eggs, one at a time. Butter a plain cylinder-mould eight inches in diameter, and pour in the cake mixture and bake; when it may be turned out of the mould and left until cold. Cut into slices and lay on a baking-sheet, dredge well with caster sugar and glaze in an oven. Then peel and slice some pineapples, place in a stewpan with some thin syrup and simmer them gently; set the trimmings of the pineapple in a mortar, and pound them thoroughly, then strain through a fine sieve, and arranging the crusts and pineapple slices alternately on the dish, forming them in a circle. Boil the syrup in which the pineapples have been cooked, till it is reduced to 32 degrees, when it may be mixed with the pounded pineapple, and the whole strained through a fine hair-sieve over the crusts and pineapple. Then serve.
This is a French croûte dessert in disguise: a very rich brioche baked in a tube mould, sliced, sugared and glazed, then layered with poached pineapple and a reduced pineapple syrup. The dough is the whole job — eleven eggs and three-quarters of a pound of butter into a pound of flour means the butter must go in slowly or the paste breaks.
- German yeastCompressed fresh baker's yeast. Half an ounce is about 14 g fresh, or roughly 1.5 teaspoons of instant dry yeast; if using dry, skip the sponge-slaking and simply mix it into the warm milk.
- UnitsA pound of flour is about 3.5 cups (450 g). A teacupful of the period is usually reckoned at about 1/2 to 3/4 cup, though the text does not define it. Caster sugar is superfine sugar; ordinary granulated works in the dough but caster dissolves faster for the glaze.
- The hinge: adding the eggsEight eggs go in one at a time after the butter, and each must be fully absorbed before the next. Rushing this splits the paste into a curdled slurry that will not rise. A stand mixer with the paddle, on low, is far kinder than a wooden spoon.
- Oven for the cakeNo temperature is given. A butter-heavy brioche of this size wants 375F, dropping to 350F once it has coloured, and about 45-55 minutes in an 8-inch tube mould. It must be cold before slicing or the slices tear.
- Glazing the crusts"Glaze in an oven" means dredge the slices with sugar and give them a very hot short blast, 450F or under the broiler, until the sugar melts and browns. Watch continuously; the crossover from glazed to burnt is a matter of seconds.
- "Reduced to 32 degrees"A Baumé reading from a saccharometer, the standard pastry tool of the period, not a temperature. Thirty-two degrees Baumé is a syrup of roughly 58-60 percent sugar — medium-heavy, coating but still pourable. A refractometer reading of about 60 Brix is the modern equivalent.
- Fresh pineapple onlyThe pounded trimmings pressed through a sieve are what give the sauce its flavour; canned fruit in its own juice will not supply it. Cored fresh pineapple, gently simmered in thin syrup until translucent, holds its shape better than boiled.
- YieldThe brioche makes more cake than one dish of crusts will use. Perhaps eight to ten servings from the assembled ring, with the remaining cake eaten as it stands or made into further croutes the next day.
This belongs to a family of nineteenth-century French desserts built on croutes — slices of stale sweet bread or brioche, sugared and glazed, then arranged in a ring with poached fruit and a fruit-scented syrup. Escoffier and his contemporaries list croutes with apricots, pears, bananas and pineapple as a matter of course; the technique uses up yesterday's brioche, and the crisp caramelized surface holds up under wet fruit where plain sponge would collapse. Pineapple was still an imported luxury in late nineteenth-century America and read as a display fruit. The saccharometer instruction is a useful marker too — it points to a professional kitchen, where a pastry cook could be expected to measure syrup density as a matter of routine.