No. 3076

Pancake Sticks, Royeaux

Pannequets Batons, Royeaux

Prepare six large pancakes as for pancakes a la Rossini (No. 3073); cut them in two and each of these pieces into oblongs, four and a half inches long by three inches wide; lay on the center of each of these a spoonful of almond cream (No. 40); fold them laterally in three so as to enclose the cream and dip them in beaten eggs; roll in bread-crumbs and plunge into very hot frying fat to have them a fine golden color, then drain, bestrew with vanilla sugar (No. 3115) and dress in a pyramid on a napkin. Serve separately an orgeat sauce thickened with a few spoonfuls of apricot marmalade. See Franklyn pudding (No. 3098).

← No. 3075 Pancakes of Peach Marmalade Macedoine Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3077 Pancakes with Brown Sugar—Light →

For the Modern Kitchen

A crêpe recipe in disguise: thin pancakes wrapped around almond cream, breaded and deep-fried. Ranhofer writes in cross-references, so several components are named rather than given, and the working details are what need filling in.

The pancakes are crêpesThe batter for "Pancakes a la Rossini" (No. 3073) is not given here, but the instruction to cut the pancakes into oblongs and fold them in three implies a thin, pliable crêpe rather than a raised breakfast cake. Anything thick will crack when folded in three and will not brown evenly under a crumb coat.
Almond creamNo. 40 is not reproduced here; from its use it must be a stiff almond cream of the frangipane type. A firm, cold almond pastry cream is what is wanted; anything loose will burst the seams in the fryer. Chill the filled parcels before breading.
Fold and sealThe hinge of the dish. Fold the two long sides over the filling with a good overlap, keep the seam underneath, and press the ends. Egg-wash and crumb the whole parcel so the coating bridges the seam — a leak in hot fat means the cream boils out and the batons collapse.
"Very hot frying fat"Period "very hot" fat runs hotter than modern crumb-frying practice; somewhere around 350-375F will colour the crust without darkening the crumbs before the cream inside warms. Cooler and the pancake soaks fat. A minute or two a side is enough.
Vanilla sugarNo. 3115 is cross-referenced rather than given; period vanilla sugar was made either by storing sugar with split vanilla beans or by pounding the beans with sugar and sifting. Modern vanilla sugar, or sugar blitzed with the scrapings of a pod, does the same job. Dust while the batons are still hot so it clings.
Orgeat sauceOrgeat is an almond syrup flavoured with orange-flower water; nineteenth-century versions often carried bitter almond, modern bottled orgeat does not. Thin it with a little water or cream, warm it gently, and whisk in the apricot marmalade — do not boil, or the syrup separates and turns grainy.
Dressed on a napkinA period service convention: a folded linen napkin on the platter absorbs frying fat and keeps the crust from steaming soft. A rack or paper does the same and looks less like 1894.
YieldSix large pancakes, halved and then cut into 4.5 x 3 inch oblongs, will give rather more than twelve batons depending on the size of the pan; enough for a dessert course for six or so. They must go to table straight from the fryer; reheated, the coating goes leathery and the cream weeps.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as an encyclopaedic record of the restaurant's repertoire, and the hot entremets chapter runs to dozens of pancake variations distinguished only by their filling and finish. Pannequet is the French kitchen's borrowing of the English "pancake," used specifically for a thin pancake spread with something sweet and folded; bâtons describes the stick shape produced by the three-way lateral fold. "Royeaux" is one of the many proprietary or fanciful garnish names of the era whose origin is not documented — such names were freely coined by chefs and rarely explained. The orgeat sauce points to an older tradition still: orgeat began as a barley drink (from Latin hordeum) and by the eighteenth century had become an almond syrup scented with orange-flower water, familiar to Ranhofer's readers as a soda-fountain and cordial flavour long before it settled into tiki bars.