No. 3075

Pancakes of Peach Marmalade Macedoine

Crepes Marmelade de Peches Macedoine

Have four ounces of sifted flour in a basin with one ounce of sugar, a pinch of salt, two whole eggs, one egg-yolk and the finely chopped peel of a quarter of an orange; add to the whole a gill and a quarter of milk. Stir well with a whip and pour in two and a half ounces of melted butter and with this preparation make some pancakes, six inches in diameter; from them cut with a pastry-cutter rounds in the center two and a half inches in diameter and around with another cutter six inches in diameter, so as to have them all of even size. Cover with a layer of peach marmalade (No. 3675) and dress on a dish, superposing one on the other; bestrew with fine sugar and glaze under a salamander (Fig. 123), then fill the center with a macedoine of fruits cut in five-sixteenth inch squares, having them mingled with peach marmalade and maraschino. Place around a garnishing of apples cut in inch-diameter balls and cooked in syrup, and on each one of these fasten a candied cherry with a piece of angelica. Serve an apricot kirsch sauce (No. 3001) apart.

← No. 3074 German Pancakes Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3076 Pancake Sticks, Royeaux →

For the Modern Kitchen

A crêpe assembly from Ranhofer's Delmonico's repertoire: sweet orange-scented pancakes stacked into a ring, glazed, and filled with diced fruit. Nothing here is difficult, but the batter measurements and the finishing equipment need translating.

The batter, in modern measuresFour ounces of sifted flour is about 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (113 g); one ounce of sugar is 2 tablespoons. Taking a gill as the American half-cup (4 fl oz), "a gill and a quarter" of milk is 10 tablespoons, a scant 2/3 cup.
That is a great deal of butterTwo and a half ounces (5 tablespoons) of melted butter into roughly 113 g of flour makes a rich, self-releasing batter. The pan needs almost no greasing, and the crêpes will brown faster than a lean batter — keep the heat moderate.
Rest the batterRanhofer does not say so, but half an hour's rest lets the flour hydrate and the gluten relax, which is what gives crêpes that will take a clean cut from a pastry cutter without tearing.
Cutting the ringsThe instruction is to stamp a 2 1/2-inch disc out of the centre of each 6-inch pancake, leaving an even annulus. Cut while the crêpes are still supple, not brittle, and stack them with the marmalade between as you go.
Salamander means broilerThe dusting of "fine sugar" — superfine or caster — is glazed under a salamander. A domestic broiler on high, rack close, does the same job in a minute or two; a kitchen torch is more controllable.
MacedoineA macédoine is simply mixed fruit cut in small even dice, here five-sixteenths of an inch, near enough to 8 mm. Any mixture of soft fruit — peaches, pears, apricots, cherries, grapes — will serve; bind it with a spoonful of the peach marmalade and a splash of maraschino.
Apple ballsCut with a large parisienne scoop and poach in a light syrup (roughly equal parts sugar and water) until just translucent, five to eight minutes. Cooked to collapse they will not hold the cherry and angelica pinned into them.
AngelicaCandied angelica stem, once standard for green decoration, is now a specialty item. Candied citron or a thin strip of candied lime peel stands in visually if none is to hand.
YieldRanhofer gives no yield or number of servings; this quantity of batter will make considerably more than eight 6-inch crêpes. The apricot–kirsch sauce is passed separately, not poured over the glaze.

A Little History

This is Charles Ranhofer's cooking at Delmonico's in New York, set down in The Epicurean (1894) after many years in that kitchen, and it shows the French grande cuisine habit of building a dessert out of cross-references — the peach marmalade, the apricot kirsch sauce and the salamander illustration all point elsewhere in the book, because the recipe assumes a brigade with those components already standing by. The word macédoine for a mixture of diced fruits or vegetables is, by a folk etymology often repeated, linked to the idea of Macedonia as a patchwork of peoples under Alexander. The construction itself — flat pancakes stacked into a ring with a filled well at the centre, then glazed and garnished with syrup-cooked fruit and candied trimmings — belongs to the era when a hot entremets was expected to arrive as an object to be looked at before it was cut, and it is a reminder that the crêpe, in the restaurant kitchen of the 1890s, was structural material rather than a dish on its own.