No. 3229

Almond Biscuit

Biscuit aux Amandes

Beat one pound of sugar in a basin with fifteen egg-yolks, obtaining a very light mixture; add five ounces of sweet and one of bitter almonds, pounded finely with two egg-whites; continue to whip together for a few minutes longer, then add five ounces of flour, five ounces of fecula, two ounces of melted fresh butter and lastly twelve stiffly whipped egg-whites. Pour this preparation into a pound cake or "manque" mold lined with paper, and bake in a very slow oven. Turn out the cake as soon as done, transferring it to a grate to cool; mask the surface with apricot marmalade (No. 3675) and ice with almond milk fondant (No. 58). After this icing is dry slip the cake on a round board covered with lace paper and decorate the top with royal icing. Surround the base with a circle of fine large preserved cherries and lozenges of angelica.

← No. 3228 Biscuit a la Hernani Large Cakes for Entremets No. 3230 Mousseline Biscuit →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a full-size sponge from Charles Ranhofer's Delmonico repertoire, and it turns on an ingredient that is no longer sold as food. The notes below explain the terms and the problem.

The bitter almonds are the reason to stopBitter almonds contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the kernel is crushed and wetted, which is what pounding them with egg-whites does. Heat drives off a good deal of the cyanide, but an ounce of raw bitter-almond kernel is not a trivial quantity to begin with. Their sale for eating is restricted in the United States and elsewhere; use a current sponge recipe instead.
Almond "flavor" in the periodNineteenth-century pastry cooks commonly used a small proportion of bitter almonds alongside sweet ones for aroma, in much the same way a modern kitchen would use a few drops of extract.
FeculaRanhofer's fecula is potato starch, sometimes arrowroot — a pure starch used alongside wheat flour to lighten the crumb. It is not a thickener substitution for flour in the modern sense; the two are weighed equally here for texture.
The manqué moldA moule à manqué is a round tin with sloping sides, deeper than a modern layer pan. Lining it with paper was standard because these egg-heavy sponges stick badly and were turned out hot.
"A very slow oven"In a coal or wood range this generally meant falling heat, an oven well after the bread had come out: a long, gentle bake for a batter carrying fifteen yolks and fourteen whites, so the cake sets without cracking or coloring.
The finishApricot marmalade brushed over the surface is a sealing glaze, not a filling; it gives the fondant something smooth to sit on. Fondant, royal icing, preserved cherries and angelica lozenges mark this as an entremet for the dessert service rather than a teatime cake.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his long tenure running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and its cake chapters read as French pastry transplanted whole into an American hotel. Biscuit here is the French term for a whipped-egg sponge, not the American quick bread nor the English cookie, and the almond version belongs to a long family of biscuits aux amandes built on separated eggs, ground nuts and a proportion of pure starch. The use of a small measure of bitter almonds against a larger measure of sweet ones was a standard European practice for centuries — bitter almond was the source of the marzipan and ratafia aroma before benzaldehyde was made synthetically — and it persisted in professional kitchens well past the point when the toxicity of amygdalin was understood. The elaborate finishing, with lace paper, angelica and glacé cherries, reflects how these cakes were used: set out whole as part of the dessert display, judged first by eye.