No. 3340

Butter Patiences

Patiences au Beurre

Beat up with a spatula half a pound of butter and half a pound of sugar with a pinch of salt to make a not too light preparation; add eight eggs, one by one, the peel of a lemon, and lastly one pound of flour, and mix well. Put this paste into a pocket (Fig. 179) furnished with a quarter-inch thick channeled socket and range it in small biscuits two and a half inches long and one inch apart on a buttered sheet, then bake in a hot oven.

← No. 3339 Basel Leckerlets Tea Cakes No. 3341 Cats' Tongues with Butter →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's patiences are piped finger biscuits — a rich, eggy batter closer to a soft sponge than to a rolled cookie. The instructions assume a professional pastry station, so a few translations are needed.

The weights in cupsHalf a pound of butter is 2 sticks (225 g), half a pound of sugar is about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons, and a pound of flour is roughly 3 1/2 cups. Weighing is far more reliable here, since the batter has to be stiff enough to hold a piped ridge.
"Not too light"This is the hinge. Cream the butter and sugar only until smooth and combined, not pale and aerated. An over-whipped base collapses in the oven and the piped fingers spread into puddles.
Eight eggsEgg sizes were not standardised as they are now, so eight of Ranhofer's eggs may not equal eight of today's large ones; if the batter seems slack, six or seven large eggs (about 300-350 g out of shell) may be closer. Add them one at a time as directed and beat each in fully, or the mixture breaks.
Pocket and socketA "pocket" is a piping bag and the "channeled socket" a fluted or star tip with a quarter-inch opening.
Hot ovenThe book gives no temperatures; "hot oven" is conventionally read today as roughly 400-425°F. Small piped biscuits at that heat take only 8 to 12 minutes; pull them when the fluted edges and tips have coloured and the centres are still pale.
Lemon peel"The peel of a lemon" means the zest only, finely grated or rubbed into the sugar first. Any white pith turns the batter bitter.
SpacingTwo and a half inches long, an inch apart, is tighter than it sounds — these do spread. Pipe them in staggered rows and expect to bake in batches.
YieldThe original gives none. This quantity of batter makes roughly five to six dozen fingers, which is a professional-sized batch; halving it is sensible for a home kitchen.
CoolingLift them off the sheet within a minute or two, while still pliable, then cool flat on a rack. Left to set on the pan they stick and crack.

A Little History

Patiences are a family of small piped tea biscuits from French pâtisserie, close cousins to langues de chat — which Ranhofer places directly after them in this same section — and to the piped spritz biscuits of German and Alsatian baking. The name is generally explained as a reference to the patience required to pipe out hundreds of identical little fingers, though that reading is traditional rather than documented. Charles Ranhofer, chef of Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a working reference for professional kitchens, which is why the recipe assumes a pastry bag, a quarter-inch channeled socket and a batch large enough to fill several sheet pans.