No. 3128

Bucket of Waffles with Cream

Baquet de Gaufres a la Creme

Prepare a waffle preparation the same as for the timbale of wafers (No.3222); spread it in a layer on a waxed baking sheet, having it about one-sixteenth of an inch in thickness, and bake it partly, then remove from the oven and cut from it twenty-five uprights, each three-quarters of an inch wide and four inches long, and two others an inch and a half wide by five and a quarter inches long; bore a hole with a thin tube five-eighths of an inch in diameter through these two, and also cut a round bottom piece six inches in diameter. As soon as all these are cut return the sheet to the oven to finish baking the waffles; when of a fine color remove and leave to get thoroughly cold on a marble. Have a timbale mold six inches in diameter; lay the round piece on the bottom and arrange the high pieces against the sides, having the two longest and bored ones exactly opposite to each other, fastening them all on with cooked sugar. When cold unmold the bucket and encircle it with two bands of almond paste (No. 125) in imitation of hoops, having one slightly above the bottom and the other a short distance from the top; slip the bucket on a dish and when ready to serve fill it full of whipped cream flavored with vanilla.

← No. 3127 Frothy Puree of Apples Cold Entremets — Creams, Jellies & Charlottes No. 3129 Basket of Nougat with Cream →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is assembly work more than cooking: a thin wafer batter is baked flat, cut into staves, and glued into a miniature barrel with hot sugar. Nothing about it is difficult, but the timing of the cut decides whether it succeeds.

The hinge: cut at the half-bakeThe sheet is baked only until set, cut, then returned to finish. A fully baked wafer shatters under a knife; an underbaked one drags and distorts. Work fast on a warm sheet, and if the pieces stiffen before you finish, slide the pan back into the oven for thirty seconds to soften.
Cross-references you need firstNo. 3222 supplies the wafer batter and No. 125 the almond paste. Neither is on this page, so source a modern equivalent: any tuile or gaufrette batter that spreads to 1/16 inch, and commercial marzipan rolled thin for the hoops.
Oven heatRanhofer gives no temperature here. A thin wafer batter of this kind will want no more than a moderate oven, and it colours quickly. Watch it rather than the clock; the edges brown well before the centre.
"Waxed baking sheet"A sheet rubbed with wax as a release surface. Parchment or a silicone mat does the same job better and lets you lift the whole slab to a cool surface.
The marbleNot decorative. Wafers curl as they cool, and a cold stone slab pulls the heat out flat and fast. A chilled sheet pan or a stone countertop works; a wooden board does not.
Cooked sugar as glueThe recipe names no stage; sugar taken to the crack, around 300-310F, sets in seconds and will hold the staves upright. It is hot enough to stick to skin and burn badly. Dip the edge of each piece rather than pouring, and keep a bowl of ice water beside you.
The geometry checks outThe arithmetic -- Twenty-five staves at 3/4 inch come to 18 3/4 inches, close to the roughly 18 7/8-inch circumference of a 6-inch mold; the two wider bored pieces add three inches beyond that, so the staves must overlap or crowd. The two wide pieces sit opposite each other; Ranhofer never says what goes through the holes.
The moldA timbale mold here means a round, deep mold about 6 inches across. A 6-inch cake ring or a straight springform base does the same work; line it with a parchment collar so the finished shell releases without snapping a stave.
Fill at the table, not beforeThe instruction to fill only when ready to serve is doing real work. Whipped cream weeps and wafer softens quickly on contact. Build and hoop the bucket hours ahead, keep it somewhere dry, and pipe the cream in at the last moment.
YieldThe recipe gives no yield. As an entremets in a long menu it was meant to be looked at as much as eaten.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry belongs to the part of the repertoire that existed to be carried into a dining room and admired. The French service of the period ranked such things as pièces montées, edible constructions in nougat, spun sugar, pastillage or wafer that stood on the table as centrepieces before being dismantled; the tradition is generally traced to Antonin Carême, whose architectural sugar work set the standard every subsequent chef was measured against. Note the neighbours in the numbering: No. 3129 is a basket of nougat with cream, and the same trick of building a container out of one sweet and filling it with another runs through the whole section. The joke of the baquet, a wooden bucket complete with staves and hoops, rendered in wafer and almond paste, is the same joke a modern pastry chef makes with a trompe-l'oeil lemon: technique displayed as modesty.