No. 3309

Gooseberry Cakes and Tarts

Gateaux et Tartes aux Groseilles Vertes

Prepare a tart paste (No. 149) with one pound of flour, three-quarters of a pound of butter, five ounces of powdered sugar, two whole eggs, three yolks, salt and lemon flavoring. Divide this paste into two parts and roll them out separately into oblong layers not too thin; roll one of these on the pin to unroll on a large baking sheet, cutting off the four sides evenly, and edge it with a small band of the paste laid on higher, forming a border of half an inch; prick the paste. Cook this flat till it is half done in a very slack oven, not allowing it to brown, then take it out and let get cold. Fill the hollow as high up as the border with blanched gooseberries without boiling, so that they remain whole; smooth them evenly and egg over the raised border. Roll the second flat on the rolling-pin and unroll it on top of the other; press down the edges, fastening them together, and egg the surface. Lay the baking sheet on top of another and push the two into a slack oven (the second one is to prevent the half-cooked paste from burning). When the top paste is well dried remove from the fire and glaze over with a thin layer of fondant flavored with lemon (No. 58); let get cold, then cut the cake into three and a half inch wide strips and these across in such a way as to obtain oblong pieces. Round tarts may be prepared in the same way.

← No. 3308 Genoeses with Cream Meringued Small Cakes for Entremets No. 3310 Goronflots →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's method is a sheet tart: a rich sweet paste baked flat, filled with whole green gooseberries, lidded, and cut into fingers after glazing. Two things decide whether it works — a very low oven throughout, and fruit that goes in raw enough to hold its shape.

Slack ovenNineteenth-century "slack" is usually reckoned at somewhere around 300F, and "very slack" lower still; the recipe asks for the very slack oven first and a slack one for the second bake. The blind bake should set the paste without a hint of colour, and the second bake only dries the lid; at normal pastry heat the base is likely to burn before the top is done.
The doubled baking sheetStacking one sheet under the other is period insulation against fierce bottom heat. A heavy or doubled sheet pan does the same job in a modern oven, and it is still worth doing since the base is already half-baked.
The pasteOne pound flour, twelve ounces butter, five ounces sugar, two eggs and three yolks is a very rich pâte sucrée, near shortbread. Work it cold and quickly, rest it in the refrigerator before rolling, and expect it to be short and prone to cracking rather than elastic.
"Blanched" gooseberriesHere blanching means a brief dip in boiling water and no more — the note "without boiling, so that they remain whole" is the hinge. Cook them properly and they collapse into a wet purée that soaks the base and steams the lid off.
Green gooseberriesThese are unripe fruit, hard and sharply acid, picked in early summer. Ranhofer sweetens nothing but the paste and the fondant; if that reads as too sharp, the blanched fruit can be tossed with a little sugar before filling. Frozen gooseberries are likely to thaw too soft for this treatment.
Fondant glazePoured fondant is warmed to about body temperature, thinned with a little syrup and lemon, and spread thin while the cake is barely warm. Too hot and it goes dull and grainy; on a hot cake it simply runs off.
Cutting and yieldCutting -- Cut only when completely cold, with a long thin knife wiped between strokes. The recipe gives three-and-a-half-inch strips cut across into oblongs, but specifies neither the sheet size nor the second cut, so the number of pieces is open.
Sealing the lidEgg wash on the raised border is the glue. Press the two pastes together firmly along the edge, or steam from the fruit will lift the top sheet during the second bake.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this sits in his file of small cakes for entremets — the sweet course sent out in neat uniform pieces rather than as a cut-at-table tart. The construction is thoroughly French: a sheet of paste with a raised band, filled and lidded and finished with poured fondant, then divided into bars, which is how a professional kitchen produced dozens of identical portions from one bake. Green gooseberries were a short-season fruit familiar to European-trained cooks and to American kitchens with a kitchen garden; they were valued for exactly the quality that makes them awkward now, a hard acidity that survives cooking and cuts through a butter-heavy paste and a sugar glaze. The berry has never regained much ground in the United States, partly because early twentieth-century restrictions on Ribes plantings, imposed to control white pine blister rust, kept it out of commercial cultivation for decades.