No. 3032

Eggs with Cream, Meringued

Œufs a la Creme Meringues

Have seven or eight eggs in a bowl, beat them well, then run them through a sieve: add six ounces of sugar partly flavored with vanilla and eight pulverized macaroons; dilute the whole with a pint of raw cream, and stir the preparation on the fire for a few moments to warm it, then pour it at once into a souffle saucepan (Fig. 182), or simply a buttered pie plate (Fig. 183); let it poach in a bain-marie in a slack oven, and as soon as it becomes firm take it from the water and leave stand till cold; then cover the entire surface with apricot marmalade (No. 3675). Cover over with a layer of Italian meringue (No. 140) flavored with kirsch, smooth nicely and dredge the top with palverized macaroons; let stand for a few moments in a slack oven and glaze it with sugar.

← No. 3031 Stuffed Eggs Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3033 Eggs with Coffee Cream Meringued →

For the Modern Kitchen

A baked custard finished with jam and Italian meringue, from Ranhofer's Delmonico's kitchen. The hinge is temperature: the custard must set gently in its water bath and never approach a simmer, or it will curdle and weep under the meringue.

Slack ovenA slack oven is generally taken to mean a slow one, somewhere in the region of 250-300F; the low end suits a custard in a bain-marie. Set the dish in a roasting pan, pour in hot water to come halfway up, and bake until the centre is just barely set — custards generally set somewhere around 170-180F.
Raw cream"Raw cream" here means simply uncooked, unscalded cream, as opposed to a boiled custard base. Use pasteurized heavy cream; the quantity is a pint, 2 cups.
MacaroonsNot coconut macaroons. These are the small dry almond macaroons of the period, closest today to Italian amaretti or amaretti di Saronno. Eight of them pulverized gives roughly 1/2 to 3/4 cup of crumbs, depending on size.
Sugar and flavouringSix ounces of sugar is a scant cup by volume. "Partly flavored with vanilla" means some of it was vanilla sugar; a teaspoon of vanilla extract, or sugar stored with a split bean, does the same work.
Sieving the eggsPassing the beaten eggs through a sieve removes the chalazae and any unbroken albumen strands. It is the difference between a smooth custard and one with rubbery threads, and it is worth the thirty seconds.
Warming on the fire"Stir on the fire for a few moments to warm it" means just that — take the chill off so the custard sets evenly. Keep it well below any simmer; the point is a warm mixture, not a cooked one.
Italian meringueItalian meringue is whites beaten with a sugar syrup cooked to about the soft-ball stage, roughly 238-245F, poured in as a thread; Ranhofer's No. 140 is cross-referenced but not given here. It is stable enough to hold shape and does not need baking through, which is why the finished dish goes back to a slack oven only briefly.
Apricot marmaladeNo. 3675 is cross-referenced but not given here; what is wanted is a thick, smooth apricot preserve. Good apricot jam warmed and pushed through a strainer to remove skins gives the same smooth layer.
Glazing with sugarThe original glaze was done with a salamander — a heated iron held over the surface. A broiler set high, watched constantly, or a kitchen torch achieves the same browning on the dredged crumbs.
YieldSeven or eight eggs and a pint of cream will roughly fill a 9- to 10-inch pie plate and should serve six to eight. Note that the custard is cooled completely before the marmalade and meringue go on, so the dish is not served piping hot despite its place among the hot entremets.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of his thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, where he numbered every preparation and cross-referenced it to the others — hence the pointers to No. 3675 and No. 140, which a reader is expected to look up rather than have restated. The dish itself belongs to the baked crème renversée tradition, dressed up in the layered manner that late nineteenth-century restaurant pastry favoured: custard, preserve, meringue, crumb, glaze. The pulverized macaroon is a thoroughly period touch — dry almond macaroons were often used as a flavouring and a garnish, much as ground nuts and cookie crumbs are used now.