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Strawberry Tartlets
Put one pound of coarsely-crushed loaf-sugar into a saucepan with a small quantity of water, and boil until it is reduced to a syrup, then take it off the fire and mix it with one wineglassful of brandy or sherry. Pick the stems off some freshly gathered ripe strawberries and put them in the syrup. Butter some small patty-pans, and line them with a good short paste, fill them with uncooked rice and bake them. When the tartlets are cooked turn the rice out, fill them with the strawberries and syrup, and put them in the oven for ten minutes. Spread a folded napkin on a hot dish, arrange the tartlets on it, and serve them accompanied with cream in a pitcher, if desired.
A blind-baked shortcrust shell filled with strawberries in a brandy syrup, from the Waldorf's turn-of-the-century pastry section. The syrup is the hinge: boil it too far and it sets to candy once the tartlets cool.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold in a hard cone and broken up for use. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct substitute; one pound is about 2 1/4 cups.
- How far to boil the syrup"Reduced to a syrup" here means little more than a heavy syrup, at most the thread stage (about 230-235F), with just enough water to dissolve the sugar. Boiled beyond that it will set hard in the shells as they cool.
- A wineglassfulIn American books of this period a wineglass is about 2 fluid ounces, or 1/4 cup. Add the brandy or sherry off the heat, as the recipe says, so the alcohol and aroma are not driven off.
- Patty-pansSmall individual tartlet tins, typically 2 to 2 1/2 inches across. A standard shallow muffin tin works. The recipe gives no paste quantity or number of shells.
- Rice as pie weightsThis is blind baking. Line each shell with a round of parchment before adding the rice, which the original did not do; rice tipped straight onto raw pastry sticks and scorches. Bake at 400F for 12 to 15 minutes, lift out the paper and rice, and give the shells another few minutes to dry the base.
- The ten minutes at the endFully ripe strawberries collapse fast. The recipe names no oven heat; the final ten minutes need only warm the fruit and glaze it in the syrup, so a moderate heat (around 350F) and pulling them as soon as the syrup bubbles at the edge is the safe reading.
- ServingThe folded napkin on the dish was standard service of the period, and would have absorbed any syrup that ran as well as keeping the tartlets from sliding. Serve warm, with cold cream poured at the table.
Oscar Tschirky's 1896 collection catalogues the standing repertoire of a large hotel kitchen rather than inventing dishes, and this tartlet is a plain example of the French tartelette aux fraises as it was made in American hotels: a blind-baked short paste, fruit barely cooked, a sugar syrup fortified with spirit. The instruction to fill the raw shells with uncooked rice is the old form of what pastry cooks now do with ceramic or metal weights. The folded napkin under the pastry was standard hotel service of the period, used under anything fried or syrupy. The insistence on strawberries "freshly gathered" is a reminder that the dish belonged to the local season.