No. 3331

Demonet Tartlets

Tartelettes a la Demonet

Line a sufficient number of tartlet molds with puff paste parings (No. 146). Put in a saucepan four ounces of sugar, four ounces of butter and half a pint of water; set it on the fire and at the first boil add half a pound of flour; dry the preparation for one second, then remove from the fire and beat in seven or eight eggs singly and a little powdered vanilla and finely chopped citron. Cover the bottom of the tartlet molds with apricot marmalade (No. 3675) and fill them with the above paste pushed through a pocket; lay two small bands of paste on top, crossing them; in each triangle place a half cherry; bake in a medium oven.

← No. 3330 Columbia Tartlets Small Cakes for Entremets No. 3332 Fanchonnette Tartlets Meringued →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a sweetened choux paste piped into raw puff-pastry tartlet shells over a layer of apricot jam, latticed and studded with cherries. The whole thing bakes at once, so the two pastries have to be set up correctly before they go in.

The hinge: dry the panade properly"Dry the preparation for one second" is not literal. After the flour goes in, stir the mass over the heat for two to three minutes until it forms a smooth ball, pulls cleanly from the sides and leaves a thin film on the pan bottom. Underdried paste will not hold the piped shape and weeps in the oven.
Eggs by feel, not by countSeven or eight eggs is a guide for a stiff 8 oz-flour batch. Let the paste cool to warm, then beat the eggs in one at a time and stop when it falls from the spoon in a heavy ribbon and holds a piped ridge. You may need only six; you may need nine if the eggs are small.
MeasuresHalf a pint is one cup (8 fl oz) of water. The four ounces of sugar and butter and the half pound of flour are weights, not volumes — weigh them. This paste is sweet, unusual for choux, and will brown faster than a plain one.
Puff paste paringsNo. 146 is Ranhofer's puff paste; the "parings" are the trimmings from other work. Rerolled scraps rise unevenly, which is likely why they were put to use for linings and for the two crossing bands. Store-bought all-butter puff pastry, rolled thin, does the same job.
Powdered vanilla and citronPowdered vanilla was ground dried bean, often cut with sugar. Ground vanilla bean or a teaspoon of extract beaten in with the last egg works. Citron is candied citron peel, still sold at holiday baking counters; chop it very fine or it will block the piping tip.
Apricot marmaladeNo. 3675 is a thick, sieved apricot preserve, closer to a glaze than a chunky jam. Use apricot jam warmed and pushed through a sieve, and keep the layer thin — a heavy spoonful will boil up around the choux.
CherriesThese are most likely candied cherries, halved, rather than fresh ones. Fresh cherries release too much juice into an open lattice.
OvenThe book gives no temperatures; "a medium oven" corresponds to roughly 350-375°F. Bake about 20 to 25 minutes for standard tartlet molds, until the choux is firm, dry and well coloured, and resist opening the door in the first fifteen minutes. Pale choux collapses as it cools.
YieldThe recipe only says "a sufficient number" of molds, but the quantities are large — enough for a couple of dozen small tartlets at least. Ranhofer was cooking for a restaurant. Halving the paste is straightforward if you scale the eggs by weight rather than by number.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the section on small cakes for entremets reflects a kitchen that sent out trays of tiny pastries at the end of long service dinners. Names like "à la Demonet" run through the book by the hundred, attached to patrons, colleagues and occasions whose identities Ranhofer rarely bothered to explain; the form is French restaurant convention rather than a claim about origin. What is documented here is the technique: a sugared pâte à chou piped into an unbaked shell, which is how nineteenth-century pastry cooks got a light filling and a crisp base out of a single trip to the oven. The apricot glaze beneath and the candied citron and cherry above are the standard finishing vocabulary of the period's pâtisserie, where candied fruit did the decorative work that fresh fruit and cream do now.