No. 3298

Crescents with Preserves

Croissants aux Confitures

In order to make these crescents it is necessary to have two cutters: a round channeled pastry cutter (Fig. 16) and a smooth unchanneled pastry cutter the shape of a crescent, but much smaller than the first one. Roll out some puff paste made to eight turns (No. 146) into eighth of an inch in thickness; from this cut some channeled rounds four inches in diameter and with the same pastry cutter cut the rounds into crescent-shaped pieces. Range half of these crescents slightly apart from each other on a moist baking sheet and wet the tops over with a brush; empty out those remaining with the small and smooth crescent-shaped pastry cutter and lay them on top of those already prepared so that they cover them exactly; egg over and cook in a brisk oven without glazing. When removed press the paste on the empty part and when these crescents are cold glaze them lightly with icing (No. 102), using a brush, and press them on chopped pistachios. Fill the empty place in the crescents with apple jelly (No. 3668) or else apricot marmalade (No. 3675).

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For the Modern Kitchen

A puff-paste construction rather than a batter: a crescent base with a matching crescent ring stacked on top, baked so the ring rises into a wall, then filled with jelly after cooling. Everything depends on the two layers registering exactly.

The hinge: alignment and chillingThe upper ring must sit precisely over the base, or the wall bakes lopsided and the filling runs out. Cut all pieces, assemble, then chill the tray 20-30 minutes before baking so the layers set together and the paste does not slump.
"Puff paste made to eight turns"Ranhofer's No. 146 is classic laminated puff pastry given eight folds. Store-bought all-butter puff, rolled to an even 1/8 inch, behaves the same way; avoid rough puff, which will not lift a clean wall.
Cutting the crescentsCut 4-inch fluted rounds, then set the same fluted cutter down offset near one edge and cut again; the larger piece is the crescent. The small smooth crescent cutter is used only to void the centres of the top pieces, leaving rings.
"A brisk oven"Roughly 425F in modern terms. Puff needs the initial heat to convert its moisture to steam; a moderate oven gives greasy, flat pastry. Expect something in the region of 12-18 minutes, until the walls are set and deep gold.
"A moist baking sheet" and "without glazing"The pan is wiped or flicked with water to add steam under the pastry. "Without glazing" most likely means no sugar dusting during baking, which would caramelise and colour the tops before the paste has risen; the recipe reserves its glazing for the icing applied when the crescents are cold.
Egg wash disciplineBrush the tops only. Egg running down the cut, layered edges glues the laminations shut and the crescents will not rise evenly.
"Press the paste on the empty part"Straight from the oven, tamp down the puffed floor inside the ring with the back of a spoon to make a well for the filling. Do this while hot; cooled pastry shatters.
The icing (No. 102)A thin brushing icing, thin enough to paint on without pooling, as the instruction to apply it with a brush implies. Apply to the rim only, then press the rim into chopped pistachios while tacky.
Filling and yieldApple jelly or apricot marmalade, warmed briefly so it flows and set with a spoon or small piping bag; fill only after the pastry is cold or the icing weeps. The recipe gives no yield: each finished crescent takes two cut pieces, so the count depends on how the rounds are laid out. Fill the same day - the jelly softens the pastry overnight.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, and this entry sits in a long run of petits gâteaux pour entremets: small showpiece pastries sent out in assortments at the end of a formal dinner. The crescent shape is nothing to do with the Viennese breakfast croissant; here croissant simply names the form, one of a stock repertoire of cut shapes - rings, batons, ovals, crescents - that a pastry cook produced from the same sheet of puff paste to fill a tray with variety. The build itself, a base plus a stacked ring baked into a case, is the standard nineteenth-century method for what a modern kitchen would call a bouchée or vol-au-vent, applied at miniature scale and turned sweet. The cross-references to numbered recipes for puff paste, icing, apple jelly and apricot marmalade show how the book was meant to work: a professional manual of interlocking components rather than a set of standalone recipes, assuming a brigade with jelly and marmalade already made and standing by.