No. 3123

Timbale a la Figaro

Cut one pound of short paste (No. 135) into four pieces; roll them on the table into long quarter-inch thick strings and dip these strings as fast as they are done in melted clarified butter; arrange them in a spiral around the inside of a timbale mold, being careful to fasten the ends securely with beaten eggs. Leave the timbale rest for half an hour in a cool place, then fill it up in alternate layers of apples cut in quarters, cooked in butter, and masked with apricot marmalade (No. 3675) and frangipane (No. 44) with almonds. Cover over with a flat of short paste, egg the surface, and set it in the oven to cook for forty-five minutes. One moment before serving turn the timbale out on a dish, cover it with hot apricot marmalade, and strew over finely chopped pistachios and almonds, then decorate the top with rosette of angelica lozenges, having a greengage in the center; surround the base of the dome with brandied geeengages. Heat the whole for ten minutes in the oven, and serve with an apricot kirsch sauce (No. 3001).

← No. 3122 Souffle with Raspberries Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3124 Zephyr of Rice with Pineapple →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a professional pastry section and a shelf of numbered component recipes, so the work here is mostly assembly. Two things decide whether it succeeds: the lining of the mold and the unmolding.

The hinge — sealing the spiralThe ropes of pastry are dipped in clarified butter, which would help keep them from fusing into a solid sheet, and the joins are glued with beaten egg before the case rests the stated half hour in a cool place. If a seam opens, apricot marmalade can leak into the mold and make the timbale hard to turn out.
Oven temperatureNo heat is given. A pastry case this thick and this full wants a moderate oven, 350–375°F, for the stated 45 minutes; hotter and the exposed spiral colors before the apples and frangipane are set. The final ten-minute reheat after glazing is a warming, not a baking — 300°F is enough.
Short paste (No. 135)A rich, tender foundation paste rather than American pie dough; consult No. 135 for the exact make-up, as Ranhofer uses short paste for savory cases as well. One pound is enough to line and lid a timbale mold of moderate size.
Frangipane (No. 44)In period usage this is a cooked almond pastry cream — milk, eggs, flour, sugar, ground almonds — not the raw almond-butter-and-egg frangipane of modern tarts; check No. 44 for Ranhofer's version. Make a thick pastry cream and beat in ground almonds. The recipe specifies only 'with almonds' and does not say in what form.
Apricot marmalade (No. 3675)A reduced apricot purée used as both filling and glaze, stiffer than jam. A good thick apricot preserve, warmed and sieved, stands in for it; too loose and it will run out of the pastry.
Greengages and angelicaGreengages are Reine Claude plums, still grown but seasonal and rarely stocked; brandied or preserved ones in a jar are the usable form. Candied angelica stems are sold by baking suppliers and are cut into diamond "lozenges" for the rosette — purely decorative, and the dish is not diminished by leaving it off.
UnmoldingRun a knife around the rim and invert onto the serving dish, letting it settle a moment before lifting the mold. The recipe has you turn it out a moment before serving and glaze with hot marmalade straight away, which spreads more evenly on a hot surface.
YieldDepending on the size of the mold, roughly eight to ten portions as a hot dessert course, cut in wedges at the table.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of a French restaurant kitchen operating at the top of the American market, and this entremets shows the house style at full stretch: a molded pastry dome, a fruit-and-frangipane filling, a glaze, chopped nuts, a constructed rosette of candied angelica, and a separate sauce. The name follows the nineteenth-century French habit of borrowing from the opera house — Figaro, from Beaumarchais by way of Mozart and Rossini, was attached to dishes as freely as Rossini, Melba and Mascotte would be, and the label generally carries no fixed set of ingredients, only the implication of something showy. A timbale is properly the deep, slightly tapered mold rather than the dish, which is why the same word covers savory rice and macaroni cases elsewhere in the book. The greengages and angelica place it in a period when a dessert was expected to be looked at before it was eaten.