No. 3336

Valencia Tartlets

Tartelettes de Valence

Crush six ounces of almonds with six ounces of sugar and a few spoonfuls of orange flower water to make it into a paste; add to this two ounces of very finely cut-up orange peel, and five stiffly beaten egg-whites; with this preparation fill some tartlet molds lined with puff paste parings (No 146); dredge lightly with sugar, and bake in a medium oven. Unmold as soon as done, and when cold ice the tops with orange fondant (No. 58); decorate the surfaces with a rosette made of bits of orange peel, laying a preserved cherry in the center.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a pastry kitchen with almond paste, puff trimmings and fondant already on hand. Substituting for those is most of the work; the rest is straightforward.

The almond pasteSix ounces of blanched almonds ground with six ounces of sugar and orange flower water is a marzipan-style paste; a food processor does in two minutes what a mortar did in twenty. Add the orange flower water a teaspoon at a time — too much and the paste turns to slurry rather than a workable mass.
Orange flower waterThis is the distilled water, not an extract or an oil. It is potent and floral; a tablespoon or two is plenty for this quantity, and more will taste like soap.
Cut-up orange peelRanhofer means candied orange peel, standard stock in a nineteenth-century pastry room. Buy whole candied peel and dice it yourself rather than using the pre-minced mixed peel sold for fruitcake, which tends to be heavier on citron and glucose syrup.
Puff paste paringsNo. 146 is his puff paste; the parings are the offcuts from other work, re-rolled. All-butter frozen puff pastry, rolled thin and pressed into the molds, stands in well.
Folding the whitesFive stiff whites into a dense almond paste will collapse if you dump them in. Slacken the paste with a third of the whites first, then fold the rest in two additions. The batter should mound softly, not pour.
A medium ovenAround 350 ake a light gold; if the surface cracks and browns hard the oven is too hot and the tartlets will sink as they cool.
Unmolding hotHe says unmold as soon as done. Turn them out onto a rack immediately and cool completely before icing, as the recipe directs.
Orange fondantNo. 58 is his orange fondant, presumably a poured fondant, which is warmed only to about body temperature and thinned until it coats. Modern ready-made rolled fondant is a different product and will not work; use a warmed poured fondant or a stiff orange glacé icing of confectioners' sugar and juice.
YieldThe original gives none. Expect roughly eighteen to twenty-four tartlets in two-inch molds, depending on how thin the shells are rolled.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete working record of a great restaurant kitchen — some three and a half thousand numbered recipes, cross-referenced so that a cook could chase No. 146 for the paste and No. 58 for the fondant without repetition. These small cakes belong to the entremets service, the sweet course sent up in variety rather than singly, which is why the book runs numerous nearly identical tartlets in a row, each distinguished only by its filling and its garnish. Ranhofer's own English title gives the name as Valencia, and the combination of almonds, candied peel and orange flower water is common in Spanish and Mediterranean confectionery. Whether any of these tartlets was ever made in Valencia is another question — nineteenth-century menu French attached place names freely, and the label often signals an ingredient rather than a provenance.