No. 3355

Ribbons with Almond Milk

Rubans au Lait d'Amandes

Pound six ounces of almonds with a little milk. Arrange half a pound of sifted flour in a circle on the table and in the center lay the pounded almonds, half a pound of sugar, six ounces of butter and two egg-yolks; mix all together to have it smooth. Push this paste through a syringe on a lightly floured board and form it into long pointed edge ribbons; cut these in two-inch lengths and range them at once on a buttered and floured baking sheet; bake in a hot oven.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A piped almond shortbread from Ranhofer's petits fours secs, worked entirely by weight in the French manner. The whole difficulty is getting the paste to the right consistency for piping.

The hinge: keep the paste softThis dough is piped, not rolled, so it must stay pliable. Work it just until smooth and pipe immediately; if it firms up in the bag, warm the bag briefly in your hands rather than adding liquid.
Weights in modern termsSix ounces of almonds is about 1 1/4 cups whole blanched almonds, or roughly 1 3/4 cups almond flour. Half a pound of flour is about 2 cups sifted; half a pound of sugar is 1 generous cup; six ounces of butter is 1 1/2 sticks.
Pounding with milkThe splash of milk keeps the almonds from turning to oily paste under the pestle; the almond-and-milk paste is presumably what the title's lait d'amandes refers to. In a food processor, pulse blanched almonds with a tablespoon or two of milk, stopping before they go greasy. Almond flour plus the milk works and is far quicker.
The syringeA late-nineteenth-century pastry syringe was a metal cylinder with a plunger and interchangeable tips. A piping bag with a small star tip gives the ridged, "pointed edge" ribbon Ranhofer wants.
Well methodArranging the flour in a circle on the table is the classic fontaine: the fats, sugar and yolks go in the middle and the flour is drawn in from the walls. A bowl does the same job with less mess.
Hot ovenRanhofer gives no temperatures; a hot oven is conventionally taken as roughly 400-425F. At two inches long and this rich, the ribbons colour fast -- check at 8 minutes and pull them when the edges are pale gold; they crisp as they cool.
YieldExpect roughly five to six dozen two-inch ribbons. They keep a week in a tin and are meant to be served in quantity alongside other small dry cakes.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) was Charles Ranhofer's summing-up of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its tea-cake chapter is essentially a catalogue of the French petits fours secs that a large hotel kitchen turned out by the tray. Rubans au lait d'amandes — almond-milk ribbons — is presumably named for the practice of pounding almonds with a little milk or water in a mortar, which keeps the nuts from releasing their oil and yields the smooth white emulsion long sold as almond milk in confectioners' and apothecaries' shops alike. The pastry syringe Ranhofer calls for was standard professional equipment of the period, and he instructs the cook to pipe directly onto the sheet and bake at once.