No. 3367

Birds' Nests

Nids d'Oiseaux

Put four egg-whites in a vessel and beat them up with six ounces of icing sugar to obtain a rather light icing, then add a pinch of cinnamon and a large handful of citron cut in small sticks, and some shredded almonds, having half of each. Mold this preparation with the hand into inch-diameter balls and range them on a buttered and floured baking sheet; press a small roller in the center of each to form a hollow in imitation of birds' nests; dry these for one hour in the heater and bake in a very slack oven. After removing fill the centers with apricot marmalade (No. 3675). Cover this over with thick kirsch water icing (No. 102) pushed through a cornet, and scatter over the top small candies imitating eggs, and a little green sugar (No. 172).

← No. 3366 Barcelonnettes Fancy Cakes — Petits Fours No. 3368 Hazel-Nut Biscuits →

For the Modern Kitchen

A meringue-and-almond confection dried slowly rather than baked, then filled and decorated. The whole thing hinges on keeping the oven low enough that the paste sets pale and dry instead of colouring.

"A very slack oven"Roughly 250-275F in modern terms, the bottom of a modern range, though the book gives no figures. These are dried, not browned; any colour on the surface means the oven was too hot. If your oven will not hold that low, prop the door with a wooden spoon.
"Dry in the heater"The heater is the warming closet above or beside a coal range; no temperature is recorded, but it was a gentle heat well below baking. A modern oven set to its lowest setting with the door ajar, or a dehydrator, does the same job. The hour of drying forms a skin so the nests hold their shape.
Egg whites and sugarFour whites to six ounces of icing sugar is a very loose ratio by modern meringue standards. Beat the whites to soft peaks first, then work the sugar in; the mixture should be stiff enough to shape by hand, and if it is not, add sugar an ounce at a time.
CitronCandied citron peel, the pale green-yellow kind sold for fruitcake, not the fresh fruit. Cut it into short matchsticks. Candied lemon peel is the closest substitute and behaves the same way.
Shredded almonds"half of each" means equal parts citron and almonds, half the handful each. Ranhofer's shredded almonds are most likely what we would call slivered or thinly sliced; they read as twigs in the finished nest, so avoid ground almonds.
Forming the hollowThe small roller is a wooden dowel or the handle end of a pestle. Flour or oil it lightly, or the sticky paste will lift the nest off the sheet. Press before the drying stage, not after.
Kirsch water icingRanhofer's water icing is icing sugar slaked with just enough liquid to pipe, here flavoured with kirsch. It sets by drying rather than by heat, so pipe it after the nests have cooled completely.
YieldNot stated. Inch balls from this quantity give roughly two to three dozen nests, depending on how much fruit and nut goes in.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its petits fours chapter is essentially a catalogue of the small sweets that went out with coffee at the end of a long service. Bird's nest confections of this kind fit the European Easter and spring table, where the almond "twigs" and sugar eggs make the joke plain. The cross-references that run through the recipe -- to apricot marmalade, water icing, green sugar -- are characteristic of the book, which assumes a brigade with those preparations already standing by rather than a single cook starting from nothing.