No. 3055

Munich with Peaches

Munich aux Peches

Butter twelve timbale molds (No. 1, Fig. 137); fill them half full with savarin paste (No. 148), and let rise in a mild temperature, then bake in a moderate oven. As soon as done cut them off even with the edges, unmold and dip them at once in a lemon syrup flavored with Curacao, maraschino and kirsch. Drain on a grate, glaze with a light orange icing (No. 102), and decorate the top of each cake with a rosette of halved pistachios, having a halved candied cherry in the center. Range them in a circle on a dish, and fill up the inside with compoted peaches; serve a marmalade of peaches (No. 3675) passed through a sieve and flavored with noyau in a separate sauce-boat; see Cleveland peach pudding (No.3102).

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For the Modern Kitchen

A savarin-style yeast cake soaked in liqueur syrup, iced, and built into a ring around compoted peaches. Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a numbered reference system, so half the recipe lives on other pages; the notes below fill in what a home cook needs.

The hinge: soak them hotThe hinge: soak them warm -- the recipe has you unmold and dip the cakes the moment they come from the oven, while the crumb is still warm and open.
Savarin paste (No. 148)A rich yeasted batter-dough of flour, yeast, eggs, butter and a little sugar and salt — soft enough to be spooned or piped, not kneaded. Any modern savarin or baba dough works; it should half-fill the molds and roughly double as it proofs.
Timbale moldsRanhofer's No. 1 timbale is a small straight-sided or slightly flared mold; no capacity is given here. A modern dariole mold or large muffin cup stands in. Twelve of them give twelve individual cakes.
"A mild temperature" and "a moderate oven"Proof somewhere warm but not hot enough to melt the butter out of the dough. A moderate oven is conventionally read as about 350F; small savarins should need roughly 15 to 20 minutes and finish deep gold and springy.
The lemon syrupA sugar-and-water syrup sharpened with lemon and flavored with the three liqueurs off the fire so the alcohol survives. The recipe gives no proportions or temperature.
Orange icing (No. 102)The recipe calls only for a 'light orange icing'; the formula lives on another page. A thin, barely opaque sugar glaze flavored with orange is the sense of it.
NoyauA liqueur flavored with stone-fruit kernels, sold today as crème de noyaux; almond extract or amaretto stands in for the flavor. Do not attempt to infuse it yourself from cracked peach or apricot pits.
Cutting off even with the edgesThe domed tops are trimmed flat so the cakes sit upright when inverted. Trim while hot with a serrated knife, before the crust firms.
Yield and serviceTwelve small cakes, one per person, arranged as a ring with the compoted peach halves heaped in the center and the sieved peach marmalade sent round separately. Best within a few hours of soaking.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially the house repertoire set down in numbered entries, each cross-referencing the others the way a working kitchen actually operates. A "Munich" here is not a German dish but a small individual savarin dressed up with icing and confectioner's decoration — the name may well attach to a garnish and presentation rather than an origin, as seems to be the case with other of Ranhofer's entremets titles. The dish belongs to the great age of the rum-soaked yeast cake: the baba is generally traced to French pastry of the eighteenth century, the savarin ring is traditionally said to have been named for the gastronome Brillat-Savarin, and by Ranhofer's day the syrup had escalated from rum to a battery of liqueurs — Curaçao, maraschino, kirsch and noyau all in one plate. The pistachio rosette with its candied cherry is the period's standard finish.