No. 3230

Mousseline Biscuit

Biscuit Mousseline

Mix and work eight egg-yolks and two whole eggs in a basin with one pound of sugar; when quite light add two ounces of orange sugar (No. 3165) and continue to stir the preparation for a few moments longer; add four ounces of flour and four ounces of fecula and finally eight stiffly beaten egg-whites. Butter a cylindrical timbale mold, glaze it with icing sugar and fecula, half of each, then fill the mold three-quarters full with the above composition; set it in a very slack oven and let bake for an hour and a half. As soon as the biscuit is done unmold on a grate, leave to cool and afterward pare it very straight; ice over with strawberry icing (No. 102) and dress the cake on a dish. Put into a copper pan five spoonfuls of strawberry pulp and mix into it sufficient orange sugar to form a flowing paste. Heat and when quite hot pour it over five stiffly beaten egg-whites. Just when serving fill the hollow in the cylindrical mold with this preparation, dressing it in the shape of a dome; surround the base of this cream with a circle of preserved cherries and small lozenges of angelica. Arrange around the bottom of the cake some small Genoese cakes (No. 3307) iced with strawberry and cut into rectangulars.

← No. 3229 Almond Biscuit Large Cakes for Entremets No. 3231 Savoy Biscuit →

For the Modern Kitchen

A tall sponge in the French pâtisserie tradition, baked low and slow, then hollowed at the top and filled with a strawberry foam at the last moment. Ranhofer assumes you have his other numbered recipes to hand; the notes below cover what they contained.

FeculaFécule here is potato starch. Cornstarch is the usual substitute and behaves much the same, giving a drier, finer crumb than flour alone. The mould glaze of half icing sugar, half fecula is a dusting mixture that keeps the batter from sticking and gives a pale crust.
Orange sugarRanhofer's No. 3165 is sugar worked with orange zest until it takes up the oil. Rub the zest of two or three oranges into two ounces of caster sugar with your fingers and use it at once.
A very slack ovenAround 250-275F on the usual reading of the old oven scales. At that temperature a deep cylinder of sponge genuinely does need an hour and a half, but start testing with a skewer at seventy minutes.
The mouldA cylindrical timbale mould is a straight-sided, fairly deep tin — a charlotte mould or a deep cake tin of similar shape will do. The recipe's instruction to fill it three-quarters full is worth following; the batter rises and a fuller tin will dome and crack.
Beating the baseEight yolks, two whole eggs and a pound of sugar want a long beating — five to eight minutes in a stand mixer, until pale and ribboning. All the lift comes from egg; there is no chemical leavening anywhere in the formula.
FoldingFold the whites in three additions and stop the moment the streaks vanish. With a pound of sugar the batter is heavy and will deflate quickly if worked.
The strawberry creamHot fruit purée poured over beaten whites makes a fruit meringue on the Italian principle, but "quite hot" pulp is well below the temperature of a proper sugar syrup and will not cook the whites through. Use pasteurised egg whites, keep the finished foam cold, and fill the cake only at the moment of serving, as the recipe directs.
Angelica and preserved cherriesCandied angelica stem, cut into diamonds, was the standard green garnish of the period; it survives in specialist confectioners and online. Glacé cherries stand in for the preserved ones.
YieldThe cake alone should serve something like twelve to sixteen. The Genoese rectangles around the base are a separate batch of sponge and can be omitted without harming the dish.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for more than thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is his attempt to set down the whole repertoire in one volume — some 3,500 numbered recipes, cross-referenced to each other in the manner of a professional kitchen rather than a home cookbook. Biscuit mousseline is generally taken to owe its name to muslin, the light open cloth, the word being used in French cookery for preparations that are conspicuously airy. Entremets in this section are the sweet set pieces that closed a long service, and the construction here — a tall iced cylinder, a dome of pink foam, a ring of cherries and angelica, a collar of small iced Genoese — is architectural in a way that reflects how such a dessert was meant to arrive at the table whole and be admired before it was cut.