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Plum Tartlets
Roll out some puff paste to twenty-one inches by eight inches and cut round with a cutter. Line six fluted tartlet tins with the paste and press the paste at the bottom and sides so as to retain the shape of the mould, mask them with three ounces of apple marmalade equally divided; over this place a dozen plums cut in halves and stoned, dust over with powdered sugar and bake for twenty minutes in a moderate oven; bring them to the oven door, dust the edges over with powdered sugar, melt this for a couple of minutes in the oven and take out the tarts, let them cool and turn them out of the pans. Then mask them with a little apple-jelly and serve on a napkin spread over a dish.
A straightforward puff-paste tartlet, but the instructions assume a pastry cook's habits and a coal range. A few clarifications make it work in a modern kitchen.
- The paste dimensionsTwenty-one by eight inches is simply a sheet large enough to cut six rounds with waste to spare. Roll to about 1/8 inch and cut rounds roughly 1 inch wider than the tartlet tins so the paste can be pressed into the flutes without stretching.
- "Mask"Here it means to coat with a thin, even layer. Three ounces of marmalade over six tartlets is half an ounce each, roughly a tablespoon, spread on the base to keep the fruit juice off the pastry.
- Apple marmaladeNot English marmalade. This is thick sweetened apple pulp cooked down until it holds a shape on a spoon, closer to a stiff applesauce or apple butter. Unsweetened commercial apple butter substitutes well.
- Moderate ovenRoughly 350-375F. Puff paste in tartlet tins wants more heat at the start to lift the layers, so it is worth beginning hotter, around 400F, for the first eight minutes, then dropping back for the remainder.
- The sugar glazeThe second dusting is meant to fuse into a thin glassy sheet on the rim. Under a modern broiler this happens in well under two minutes and burns quickly; watch it continuously rather than trusting the clock.
- Cooling before unmouldingThis is the hinge. Warm puff paste soaked with fruit juice tears when lifted. Let the tartlets cool fully in the tins, then twist gently to release.
- Apple jelly finishWarm the jelly until just pourable and brush it thin. Applied hot it soaks in and dulls; applied barely warm it sets to a shine.
- Plums and yieldA dozen plums halved gives four halves per tartlet, so small Italian prune plums or similar rather than large freestones. Makes six tartlets, one to a person.
Oscar Tschirky's Cook Book (1896) was compiled from the working repertoire of the Waldorf, and its pastry chapter draws heavily on French patisserie practice. The technique here -- the thin layer of fruit pulp beneath the fresh fruit, the sugar glazed at the oven door, the finishing coat of apple jelly -- follows nineteenth-century French tart practice: apple jelly, high in pectin and nearly colourless, was one of the standard glazes for pale fruit, alongside apricot, long before commercial nappage existed. The instruction to serve on a napkin spread over a dish is a service convention of the period rather than a culinary one.