No. 3294

Cream Cakes Iced with Chocolate, Vanilla or Coffee

Choux a la Creme Glaces au Chocolat, a la Varille ou au Cafe

On a lightly buttered baking sheet lay some small round cream cakes made of cream cake paste (No. 132) pushed through a pocket (Fig. 179); egg over and set into a medium oven to cook; detach them from the pan as soon as done, and when cold split through the sides and fill with vanilla pastry cream (No. 46) and ice over with chocolate, vanilla or coffee fondant (No. 58), the same as eclairs.

← No. 3293 Casinos Small Cakes for Entremets No. 3295 Cream Cakes with Burnt Almonds and Glazed Cr →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes in shorthand for a professional brigade, leaning on three cross-references. Unpacked, this is simply cream puffs: choux paste piped in rounds, filled with vanilla pastry cream, and topped with poured fondant.

Cream cake pasteNo. 132 is pâte à choux — water, butter, flour cooked to a paste, then eggs beaten in one at a time. Any standard choux recipe stands in; the dough should fall from the spoon in a thick ribbon rather than run.
"Pushed through a pocket"The pocket is a cloth piping bag. A modern piping bag with a 1/2-inch round tip gives mounds of about the right size.
Medium ovenThe book gives no temperatures. Read "medium oven" as a hot start, in the region of 400F for the first 15 minutes to force the steam and lift the shells, dropping to about 350F for a further 15 to 20 minutes to dry them through. A puff pulled while still pale inside will collapse.
The hingeDo not open the oven during the first rise, and do not take them out until the sides feel rigid and sound hollow. Underbaking is the commonest failure here.
Egg overA thin wash of whole egg beaten with a pinch of salt, brushed lightly. Any egg that pools at the base will glue the puff to the sheet and stop it rising evenly.
Detach as soon as doneRanhofer means lift them off the hot pan immediately so residual heat does not steam the bases soft. A small slit in the side lets the interior steam escape as they cool.
Pastry creamNo. 46 is a milk, sugar, egg yolk and flour custard flavoured with vanilla; cook it until it boils and thickens fully, then chill before filling. Fill only shortly before serving or the shells go limp.
Fondant icingNo. 58 is poured fondant, warmed to about 100F so it flows but does not lose its gloss — thinned with a little water or syrup, coloured and flavoured with melted chocolate, vanilla, or strong coffee extract. Dip or spread the tops and let it set at room temperature.
YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. A choux paste made with 1 cup water and 4 eggs will give roughly two to three dozen puffs of this size, depending how large they are piped.

A Little History

Choux à la crème take their name from chou, cabbage, traditionally explained by the puffy shape of the baked mounds. The éclair, the profiterole and the gougère are all built from the same cooked flour-and-egg paste, which French kitchens have used since at least the eighteenth century; the paste itself is often traced to the Italian pastry cooks who came north in the Renaissance, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented. Ranhofer places these among the small cakes for entremets, the sweets sent out near the end of a long service at Delmonico's, where a single paste, a single pastry cream and a single batch of fondant could be split three ways into chocolate, vanilla and coffee and read as three items. The cross-references to Nos. 132, 46 and 58 reflect a kitchen working from standing components rather than from a single self-contained recipe.