No. 3220

Conde Tart

Tarte a la Conde

Spread a thin flat of fine foundation paste (No. 135) or half puff paste (No. 146) on a baking sheet; cut it into a round and cover the surface within an inch and a quarter from the edge with a layer of vanilla frangipane (No. 44); wet the borders of the flat and cover entirely with another thin one of fine puff paste: press the edges with the fingers and scallop out with the tip of a small knife, then cover the surface with a Conde preparation (No. 2) made of chopped almonds, powdered sugar and egg-whites; besprinkle over with fine sugar and cook the tart in a slack oven for three-quarters of an hour.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A two-crust almond tart of the classic French pâtisserie repertoire, built from three of Ranhofer's numbered base preparations. The instructions assume you have those on hand, so the work is mostly in the components rather than the assembly.

The cross-references, decodedNo. 135 is a rich short pastry (foundation paste), No. 146 a half puff paste with less butter and fewer turns, and No. 44 a frangipane — a pastry cream enriched with ground almonds and eggs, not the almond-butter cream sold as frangipane today. Any good pâte brisée or all-butter puff will stand in for the crusts.
The Condé preparationNo. 2 is, as this recipe describes it, chopped almonds, powdered sugar and egg whites: in effect a royal icing carrying nuts. It bakes to a pale crackled meringue-like crust, and it is spread on the raw tart rather than added after baking.
Slack oven'Slack' is the period term for a low oven; it is usually reckoned somewhere in the region of 275-300F, though Ranhofer gives no figure. A sugar-and-egg-white topping would colour and weep in a hotter oven, which may be why the tart is given three-quarters of an hour at low heat.
Sealing the edgesWetting the border and pressing with the fingers is what keeps the frangipane from bursting out as the puff lifts. Scalloping with a knife tip is decorative but also relieves the edge; a few small steam vents in the top crust are worth adding if your frangipane is loose.
The inch and a quarter borderKeep to it. The filling stops well short of the rim so the two pastry layers can bond, and an overfilled tart will leak and cement itself to the sheet.
Fine sugarThe recipe distinguishes the 'powdered sugar' in the Condé preparation from the 'fine sugar' sprinkled over the top, so a finer granulated sugar is the likely reading, though the book's sugar terminology is not wholly consistent.
Doneness and yieldDoneness -- Ranhofer gives no size or yield. The tart is done when the topping is set firm and just barely coloured and the underside of the pastry is dry and crisp — lift a corner to check rather than trusting the clock.
ServingFiled among the cold entremets, so it is meant to be cooled completely before slicing. Warm frangipane will smear; a cold tart cuts cleanly with a serrated knife.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, who ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, compiled The Epicurean (1894) as a working encyclopedia of the French repertoire as practised in an American grand restaurant, which is why so many entries are little more than a line of assembly pointing at numbered base preparations elsewhere in the book. The name Condé attaches to a family of almond-and-egg-white preparations in French pastry — bâtons, allumettes and tarts glazed with the same sugared almond icing — and is generally traced to the princely house of Condé, though as with most such dedications the connection is honorific rather than documented.