No. 2

Conde Almond or Filbert Preparation

Appareil a Conde aux Amandes ou Aux Avelines

Put into a vessel three ounces of powdered sugar, one ounce of vanilla sugar, four ounces of icing sugar. Dilute this compound gradually with egg-whites, in such a manner that a smooth running paste is obtained, and beat it well for several minutes, so that it becomes a consistent body. To this add six ounces of dry almonds or filberts, shelled, ground or chopped up very fine.

← No. 1 Burnt Almonds and Filberts Elementary Methods No. 3 To Chop and Shred Almonds →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a component, not a finished dish: a stiff meringue-and-nut paste spread on strips of puff pastry to make condés, or piped onto petits fours. Ranhofer gives weights but no egg-white quantity, so the texture cue is the whole instruction.

The hinge: beat to a body, not a batterAdd whites a spoonful at a time and stop while the paste still holds a soft ridge. Ranhofer gives no quantity; two to three large whites (roughly 60-90 ml) is a plausible starting point for this weight of sugar. Too much and the icing runs off the pastry and burns on the sheet.
Powdered sugar vs. icing sugarIn 1894 these were two different products: "powdered" was a fine-milled granulated sugar, still slightly gritty, while "icing" sugar was milled to a flour. Modern confectioners' sugar covers both, though it carries cornstarch, which slightly stiffens the paste. Using all confectioners' sugar gives a smoother, whiter result than Ranhofer intended.
WeightsThree ounces powdered sugar is about 85 g, one ounce vanilla sugar 28 g, four ounces icing sugar 115 g, and six ounces nuts about 170 g: roughly 400 g of dry ingredients, before whatever the egg whites add.
Vanilla sugarNot an extract substitute. Bury a split vanilla bean in a jar of caster sugar for a week, or grind a piece of bean with sugar and sieve it. One ounce of commercial vanilla sugar will also do.
Avelines are hazelnutsFilbert and aveline both mean hazelnut. Toast and rub off the skins before grinding unless you want the paste flecked brown.
"Dry almonds"Probably almonds dried after peeling, so they grind to powder rather than to butter; Ranhofer specifies only "shelled". Chill them and pulse with a spoonful of the sugar to keep the oil from releasing.
Baking the finished condéBaking the finished conde -- Ranhofer does not give the next step in this entry. Spread the paste thinly on raw puff pastry, cut into fingers, and bake in a moderate oven until the pastry is risen and the icing is set and barely coloured. No temperature is given in the book, so watch it: the sugar surface scorches well before the pastry is done if the oven runs hot.
KeepingThe paste holds a day in the refrigerator, covered against a skin forming. Beat it briefly before use; it stiffens as it sits.

A Little History

History: Charles Ranhofer built The Epicurean (1894) around exactly this kind of entry: numbered elementary preparations that the later recipes call for by name, the way a professional kitchen actually works. An appareil is a made-up mixture held ready, and the conde is a strip of puff pastry masked with almond royal icing and baked, generally traced to the pastry repertoire of early nineteenth-century Paris and named, as many such items were, for a noble house rather than any documented inventor. Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's for some three decades.