No. 3009

Compiegne with Sabayon

Compiegne au Sabayon

Butter a dozen small timbale molds (No. 1, Fig. 137), and fill them three-quarters full with Compiegne paste (No. 3236); let rise in a mild temperature, then set them on a baking sheet, and cook in a slack oven. When done, remove and cut them off exactly level with the molds; unmold and dip them at once into a light syrup flavored with Madeira wine and vanilla; drain on a grate, and then dish them up in a circle. Prepare some rings of apricot paste of the same diameter as the top of the timbales; put them on the top of each Compiegne, place a mirabel plum in the center of each, and stick a piece of angelica into each one. Cover the Compiegnes with a Madeira sabayon, as for cabinet pudding (No. 3096), serving more of it separately.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a cross-referenced recipe in the manner of The Epicurean — half the work sits in the numbered pastes and sauces it points to. What follows fills in the blanks and puts numbers on the oven.

Compiègne pasteCompiègne paste -- Ranhofer's No. 3236 is an enriched yeast dough of the brioche type, and gateau de Compiègne is traditionally made with candied fruit worked into it. Any rich brioche dough will behave much the same way here.
"A mild temperature"Around 75-80F for the proof. The molds are filled three-quarters and left until the dough crowns the rim, roughly 45 minutes to an hour with modern yeast.
"A slack oven"Conventionally reckoned at about 300-325F. The gentle heat suits a cake that is to be soaked in syrup, though Ranhofer gives no reason for it.
Timbale moldsHis No. 1 timbale is a small straight-sided mold; the book gives no capacity, but a dariole mold or a muffin-tin cup is the nearest modern stand-in. A dozen of them is the yield; figure one per person as a plated dessert.
Dip them hotThe hinge of the recipe. The cakes go into the syrup at once, straight from the mold, as Ranhofer directs; a cooled cake takes up less. A "light syrup" is a thin sugar syrup, flavored with the Madeira and vanilla off the heat so the wine is not driven off.
Apricot paste, mirabelle, angelicaThe apricot paste is a stiff cooked apricot purée set firm enough to cut — modern apricot pâte de fruit works, rolled thin and cut into rings with two cutters. A mirabelle is a small yellow plum, here almost certainly preserved in syrup and drained. Candied angelica stem is still sold by baking suppliers; candied citron or a strip of candied green peel stands in visually.
The sabayonYolks, sugar and Madeira whisked in a bowl over barely simmering water until it thickens and ribbons. It must not be allowed to approach a boil or the yolks scramble and the foam breaks. Take it to about 160F for safety, use it immediately, and send the extra to table in a warm sauceboat as directed — it will not hold.
Assembly orderSauce last. The recipe has the Compiègnes covered with sabayon and more sent separately, so they want to reach the table promptly once sauced.

A Little History

Gâteau de Compiègne takes its name from the town north of Paris, long a royal and then imperial residence, and the cake is generally traced to the kitchens associated with that court in the middle of the nineteenth century — the attribution is traditional rather than documented. It belongs to the same family as the savarin and the baba: a rich yeast-leavened cake, baked in a mold and soaked in flavored syrup. Charles Ranhofer, who ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894, gives it here in individual portions, dressed with fruit paste, a preserved plum and candied angelica, and flooded with Madeira sabayon — an assembly that says a good deal about the period's appetite for a dessert built in layers from separately prepared components, each with its own number in the book.