No. 3129

Basket of Nougat with Cream

Corbeille en Nougat a la Creme

To prepare this desert it requires a basket mold that opens in two or three parts; oil it over with a brush. Peel half a pound of almonds, wipe dry and mince them crossways; dry in a slack heater for twenty-four hours. Put a quarter of a pound of sugar in a copper pan with the juice of two lemons; stand it on a slow fire, stir with a wooden spoon till melted and of a nice yellow tint, then mix in the very hot almonds; take from the fire when the almonds and sugar form one mass. Put a part of this on an oiled baking sheet, roll it out thin with the blade of a knife, and then apply it to the inside surfaces of the basket mold; close and clip off all the nougat extending beyond the edges, and when very cold unmold and trim it with the nougat rings to serve as handles. Fill it with whipped cream flavored with vanilla, having fresh strawberries mingled in; stick here and there small pieces of angelica and dress the basket on a folded napkin.

← No. 3128 Bucket of Waffles with Cream Cold Entremets — Creams, Jellies & Charlottes No. 3130 Baskets of Oranges with Jelly →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a piece of pastry architecture rather than a dessert in the usual sense: a brittle almond caramel is pressed while hot into an oiled hinged mold, unmolded as a basket, and filled at the last moment. The whole thing turns on speed, because the nougat is workable for perhaps a minute.

What "nougat" means hereNot the white, aerated nougat of Montélimar but what a modern pastry kitchen calls nougatine — caramelized sugar bound with toasted almonds, rolled thin and set hard. It shatters like glass and behaves like glass while warm.
"A slack heater," 24 hours"Slack" is usually taken to mean an oven somewhere in the 250-300F range, but the intent here is drying rather than baking. The lowest setting your oven offers with the door propped, or a dehydrator at 135-150F, will do it; the point is almonds that are bone dry and, crucially, still very hot when they meet the sugar.
The hinge of the recipeCold almonds will seize the caramel into a grainy lump the instant they go in. Keep them in the oven until the sugar is the colour of honey, then tip them in hot and work fast.
The copper panSugar work of this period was generally done in unlined copper. With two lemons' worth of acid in the pan, heavy stainless steel is the safer choice — acid in contact with bare copper can leach copper into the sugar.
ProportionsA quarter pound of sugar to half a pound of almonds is a lean, nut-heavy mix that sets thin and fragile. Many later nougatine formulas run closer to equal weights, which gives a shell sturdier to unmold; expect breakage at this ratio and roll a little extra.
Handling heatRolling caramel with a knife blade and pressing it into a mold means working with sugar far above boiling point and your hands close to it. Cotton gloves under thin disposable gloves are one workaround; a marble slab or silicone mat, lightly oiled, replaces the oiled baking sheet.
AngelicaCandied angelica stem, used for its green colour, is now a specialty item found mainly through baking suppliers or European delicatessens. Candied citron or thin strips of candied lime peel serve the same decorative purpose.
Assemble at the table's edgeNougatine draws moisture from the air and from the cream, and softens within the hour. Keep the basket in a dry place, whip the cream with vanilla and fold in the berries, and fill only just before it goes out on its folded napkin.
YieldThe recipe gives no mold dimensions and no number of servings, so the quantity depends entirely on the basket used.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of what he cooked during three decades at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry belongs to the branch of the book concerned with spectacle: baskets, bucket-shaped waffle cases, hollowed oranges, all serving as edible vessels for cream or jelly. Nougatine baskets and cornucopias were standard equipment in the nineteenth-century French repertoire, and the hinged, multi-part basket mold Ranhofer assumes his reader owns was a specialist pastry tool. The technique descends from the same confectioners' tradition that produced the pièce montée — sugar treated as a building material, the cook demonstrating skill by making something structural out of something that wants to be a puddle. Lemon juice, as here, was one of the acids used to keep the sugar from crystallizing before the almonds went in. Strawberries in the filling suggest early summer service.