No. 3356

Scotch Bread

Pain d'Ecosse

Roast four ounces of almonds and when cold pound them with half a pound of sugar to reduce to a powder and sift through a sieve. Arrange on the table in a circle half a pound of flour; in the center put the almond powder, four ounces of butter, one egg, one separate yolk and the peel of a lemon; mix well to obtain a smooth paste. Form this with the hands into small spindles two inches long; range them an inch and a half apart on a buttered and floured baking sheet, brush over twice with beaten egg-yolks and leave stand for a minute in a cool place; when ready to bake split them in two lengthwise and push into a brisk oven.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A rich almond shortbread dough shaped into small logs, from Ranhofer's tea-cake chapter. The whole recipe hinges on grinding the almonds with the sugar rather than alone.

Almonds with sugar, not alonePounding roasted almonds by themselves turns them to paste within a minute. The half pound of sugar is there as an abrasive that keeps the mixture dry and siftable; in a food processor, pulse the two together and stop while it is still sandy.
Weights, not cupsEverything here is by weight: 4 oz almonds (115 g), 8 oz sugar (225 g), 8 oz flour (225 g), 4 oz butter (115 g). The sugar-to-flour ratio is 1:1, which is high, so the dough will feel softer and spread more than a plain shortbread.
"Brisk oven"A hot oven, conventionally taken as somewhere around 400-425F. With this much sugar and an egg-yolk glaze the tops color fast, so the lower end is safer; the recipe gives no time, so judge by the edges.
Roasting the almondsTen to twelve minutes at 350F, shaking once, until fragrant and just golden. They must be fully cold before grinding or they will oil immediately.
The flour circleThis is the old table-top well method: the flour is banked in a ring and the wet ingredients worked in from the center outward. A bowl does the same job. Work only until smooth, as this dough toughens if kneaded.
Lemon peelZest only, no white pith, finely grated or pounded into the sugar. The original "peel of a lemon" means the yellow outside of one lemon.
Splitting before bakingThe cut down the length of each spindle lets the piece open as it rises and gives the finished cake its ragged split top. Do it with a thin sharp knife after the glaze has set in the cold, not before, or the wash runs into the cut.
Chill longer than a minute"Leave stand for a minute in a cool place" presumably assumed a colder kitchen than most now have. Fifteen to twenty minutes in the refrigerator firms the butter enough that the spindles hold their shape.
YieldNot stated in the original; several dozen spindles two inches long, depending how thinly they are rolled. Store airtight.

A Little History

"Scotch bread" appears in nineteenth-century English and American cookbooks as a name for what we now call shortbread, and Ranhofer's Pain d'Ecosse is his French rendering of it -- though the roasted almonds, lemon zest and egg-yolk glaze push it well past anything a Scottish baker would have recognized, toward the small almond petits fours of a Paris pastry kitchen. That kind of translation is characteristic of The Epicurean (1894), Charles Ranhofer's enormous record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York: national dishes arrive with French names and French technique laid over them. It sits among the tea cakes, a chapter largely made up of small, dry, hand-held cakes rather than cut slabs.