No. 3251

Nougatine Cake

Gateau Nougatine

Make a biscuit preparation with a pound of powdered sugar, a pound of flour, six whole eggs, eighteen yolks, six beaten whites, vanilla and a grain of salt. Bake this in a slack oven in three or four smooth fruit pie circles, six or seven inches in diameter by an inch to an inch and a half high. These circles should be buttered with clarified butter and glazed with fecula. After taking them from the oven remove from the circles and leave to get thoroughly cold for twelve hours. Prepare a buttered orange cream the same as for the Fleury cake (No. 3237). Mince half a pound of sweet peeled almonds, previously dried on a sheet of paper then roasted in a pan to brown nicely. Cut the biscuits into transversal slices three-eights of an inch thick, and taking up seven or eight of these, one by one, cover one side with a layer of the prepared cream, then put one on top of the other so as to form into a regular-shaped cake, and cover the top and sides at once with another layer of cream; now spread over the whole a layer of the roasted almonds, fastening them on with the blade of a knife, so as to equalize its thickness; besprinkle lightly with fine vanilla sugar (No 3165), and push the cake for one minute in a hot oven, simply to have the sugar adhere to the almonds, then take out at once and when cold dress on a napkin.

← No. 3250 Neapolitan Cake Large Cakes for Entremets No. 3252 Pineapple Cake →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's nougatine is a tall almond-crusted sponge cake, and almost every instruction in it uses vocabulary that has since shifted. The batter is a classic biscuit sponge, leavened entirely by egg, and the assembly depends on the layers being bone-dry before they are split.

Slack ovenA slack or cool oven is roughly 300F, possibly lower. The sponge is baked low and slow so the tall rings set through without doming or browning; the "hot oven" called for at the end, for one minute only, need be hot merely to set the vanilla sugar on the almonds.
FeculaPotato starch, though cornstarch behaves the same here. The rings are brushed with clarified butter and dusted with it instead of flour, which gives a drier, less gummy release from the sponge.
Fruit pie circlesBottomless metal flan or cake rings, 6-7 inches across and 1 to 1.5 inches deep, set on a buttered baking sheet. Straight-sided 6-inch cake pans work if you line the bases with parchment, since the sides must be perfectly vertical for the layers to stack square.
The quantities are enormousA pound of sugar, a pound of flour, six whole eggs, eighteen yolks and six whites is restaurant scale, yielding three or four thick discs, from which seven or eight thin slices are stacked to make one cake. Halving the batter is closer to a single manageable cake; note also that the proportions leave about a dozen egg whites over.
Transversal slicesSplit each baked disc horizontally into layers about 3/8 inch thick, using a long serrated knife or a wire. The twelve-hour rest is the hinge of the whole recipe: a warm or even slightly fresh sponge tears and crumbles when split this thin.
Buttered orange creamRanhofer cross-references the orange butter cream given with the Fleury cake (No. 3237), which is not reproduced on this page. Any modern French or Swiss meringue buttercream flavoured with orange zest and a little juice will fill the same role; it must be firm enough to hold seven or eight layers without sliding.
The almondsBlanched sweet almonds, dried on paper so they do not steam, then browned dry in a pan or on a sheet in the oven. Let them cool completely before mincing and pressing them on, or they will melt the buttercream coating.
Vanilla sugarSuperfine sugar stored with split vanilla beans until scented, or blitzed with the seeds. Use a sieve for the dusting; the point is a light veil that glazes, not a sweet crust.
Yield and serviceA scaled-down batch gives one cake of seven or eight layers, serving 10 to 12. Chill briefly to firm the cream before slicing, and serve at cool room temperature on a folded napkin, as the original directs, or a flat plate.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this recipe sits in the section of large cakes served as entremets -- the sweet course between the roast and the coffee in a formal nineteenth-century menu. Nougatine here refers not to the hard caramelised almond confection used for pastry socles but simply to the almond finish. Ranhofer's numbering system, with its constant cross-references to other entries such as the Fleury cake's orange buttercream and the vanilla sugar of No. 3165, runs through the book.