No. 3223

Waffles Brisselets with Raspberry Cream

Gaufres Brisselets a la Creme Framboisee

Arrange one pound of sifted flour in a circle on the table; in the center place four ounces of butter, six ounces of sugar, a piece of hartshorn the size of a hazel-nut and powdered very fine. Dilute the whole with half milk and half cream to have it the consistency of a Milan paste, only slightly softer; roll out in the shape of strings and cut each one of these into small pieces, then mold them into balls three-quarters of an inch in diameter. Heat some flat round waffle irons, butter lightly with clarified butter and when hot open and place one of the balls in the center, close the irons and cook to a fine golden color on both sides; as soon as this is accomplished remove and roll them quickly around rolling pins three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and leave till cold. Just when ready to serve fill by means of a cornet with whipped cream flavored with raspberry and dress in a pyramid on a dish covered with a folded napkin.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A thin wafer cookie baked in a flat iron and rolled while hot into tubes, then piped full of raspberry cream at the last moment. Everything depends on speed at the iron.

HartshornThis is baker's ammonia (ammonium carbonate or bicarbonate), still sold for wafer and springerle baking. A hazelnut-sized lump powdered fine is roughly 1/2 to 1 teaspoon for a pound of flour. It smells sharply of ammonia in the hot iron; the smell largely bakes off from thin, dry wafers, which is why it suits them and not thick cakes. Baking powder will leaven but gives a softer, less brittle wafer.
Milan paste consistencyRanhofer's pâte de Milan is a stiff rolled sweet paste that holds a shape without slumping. Aim for a firm, non-sticky paste, then add the half-milk, half-cream mixture a spoonful at a time until it is just slightly softer than that. The recipe gives no quantity, so work by feel.
The iron"Flat round waffle irons" here means shallow wafer or pizzelle irons, not the deep-pocketed breakfast sort. An electric pizzelle press is the direct modern equivalent; set it hot and clean, and brush with clarified butter rather than oil, which smokes and gums the plates.
The hinge: roll immediatelyThe wafer is pliable for perhaps five to eight seconds off the iron and then sets brittle. Have the dowels or wooden spoon handles lined up before the first ball goes in, and bake only one or two at a time until your hands know the rhythm. A cracked wafer cannot be reheated back into shape.
Flavoring the creamWhip the cream to firm peaks with a little sugar and fold in raspberry purée pushed through a sieve, or a good raspberry syrup. Add the fruit after whipping; the acid and water in fresh purée will slacken cream beaten with it from the start.
Fill at the last minuteThe instruction to fill "just when ready to serve" is not decorative. Filled tubes soften quickly. Bake the wafers up to two days ahead and hold them airtight with a desiccant or in a low oven-warmed tin; humidity is their enemy.
The pyramidStacking cream-filled tubes into a cone works if you build outward-in with the seam side down and pipe the topmost few after they are in place. Count on six to eight per person as a dessert course.

A Little History

Brisselets are the French-Swiss bricelets, the thin anise- or cream-flavored wafers of Vaud, Fribourg and the Gruyère country, pressed between long-handled hinged irons that were often engraved with a family monogram or a date and handed down as household property. Rolling them hot around a stick to make a tube is the same trick that produces the Norwegian krumkake and the French cigarette russe — an old solution to the fact that a wafer is only briefly bendable. Charles Ranhofer, who cooked at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894, kept a large catalogue of such wafers in his cold entremets section. The hartshorn is the period marker: ammonium carbonate was widely used as a leavening for wafers and thin biscuits well before chemical baking powders were reliable, and it survives in exactly those recipes today.