No. 3024

Crusts with Cherries or Strawberries a la Michelet

Croutes aux Cerises ou aux Fraises a la Michelet

Cut some slices an inch thick from a very firm kitchen loaf, using only the crumb part; from them obtain six rounds with a two and a half inch diameter pastry cutter, and cut these rounds in two through their diameter so as to have twelve half-rounds. Cut partly through these half-rounds a short distance from the edge with a small kitchen knife, square the corners and plunge them into hot clarified butter to have them assume a fine golden color. Drain them at once on a cloth, wipe and empty out the centers. Cover the inside with apricot marmalade (No. 3675) and fill them level to the top with rice and cream (No. 160) flavored with vanilla and finished with a few egg-yolks and then mask the tops with a heavy layer of strawberry jam, mixed with almonds and pistachios. Dress these crusts prepared in this manner in a circle on a dish and fill the center of it with stewed fresh cherries or candied cherries washed in boiling water and softened in a light syrup, then mingled with apricot marmalade and kirsch. Serve separately a sauce-boat of cherry syrup with a few spoonfuls of currant jelly added and flavored with kirsch.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A composed hot entremets built from fried bread cases: three separate preparations (fried croûtes, a yolk-enriched rice cream, a cherry compote) assembled at the last minute. Read the cross-references first, since half the recipe lives in them.

The hinge: bread that will holdUse a firm, close-crumbed white loaf a day or two old, crust removed, cut a full inch thick. Fresh, airy supermarket sandwich bread collapses in the butter and will not survive being hollowed out.
Cutting the caseThe instruction to "cut partly through" a short distance from the edge scores a lid, as with a vol-au-vent. Do it before frying; after frying, lift out the scored centre and scoop the interior to leave walls about a quarter inch thick.
Clarified butter, and how hotClarified butter is called for because whole butter's milk solids scorch. Hold it at about 340-350F. Fry in two batches so the temperature does not crash, and drain on a rack rather than piling the croûtes up.
The cross-referenced fillingsNo. 160 is Ranhofer's rice and cream, rice cooked in sweetened milk until very soft; here it is flavoured with vanilla and finished off the heat with a few yolks. Stir the yolks in over low heat and stop at about 175F, or they curdle. No. 3675, apricot marmalade, is an apricot pur h smooth.
Nuts in the jamThe recipe does not specify the cut; blanched, peeled and finely chopped or slivered rather than ground suits the masking. Fold them into the strawberry jam just before it goes on.
Candied cherriesThe boiling-water wash removes the sugar crust and any glaze; the light syrup then softens them. With modern gla cherries a brief rinse and a short warming in syrup is enough. Fresh cherries, stoned and stewed briefly, are the recipe's other option.
Yield and timingTwelve half-rounds; no serving count is given. Everything except the frying and final assembly can be done ahead; fry, fill and serve within a few minutes or the cro go soft.
The sauceCherry syrup thinned with a little melted currant jelly and finished with kirsch off the heat, so the spirit is not driven off. Serve it warm, not hot.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he assembled from decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is a textbook example of the book's method: nothing here is invented from scratch, everything is assembled from numbered preparations kept ready in a large professional kitchen. Croûtes of fried bread filled with fruit and cream were a standard nineteenth-century French entremets, a thriftier cousin of the puff-pastry vol-au-vent and a relative of the croûte-au-pot and pain perdu family — stale bread promoted to the dessert course. The Michelet name follows the period habit of dedicating garnishes to public figures; the historian Jules Michelet, who died in 1874, is the usual assumption, though as with most such attributions in Ranhofer the connection is traditional rather than documented. The kirsch, the pistachios and the layering of three different fruit preserves in a single two-and-a-half-inch case say a good deal about what a Delmonico's dessert course was expected to deliver.