No. 3368

Hazel-Nut Biscuits

Biscuits aux Noisettes

Crush twelve ounces of roasted hazel-nuts with a pound of sugar and three eggs to make a very fine paste; lay it in a basin and add half a gill of orange flower water and sixteen egg-yolks, one at a time, then beat vigorously until very creamy. Add ten ounces of flour and twelve firmly whipped egg-whites. Pour this preparation on a paper-covered baking sheet; spread it to a three-quarters of an inch thick layer and push in a slack oven to cook. Unmold the cake as soon as done on a grate and leave in a cool place for a few hours. Then pare it very straight and soak it lightly on the under side with Curacoa; cover the top with reduced apricot marmalade (No. 3675), then cut the cake into small lozenge-shapes two inches long and dip them at once in Curacoa fondant (No. 58); bestrew with chopped and lightly roasted hazel-nuts.

← No. 3367 Birds' Nests Fancy Cakes — Petits Fours No. 3369 Biscuits with Almonds—Iced →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a nut sponge baked as a flat sheet, then glazed and cut into petits fours. It is a large-batch professional formula — twelve ounces of nuts, a pound of sugar, nineteen eggs in all — so read the yield note before you start.

The hinge: the nut pasteThe hazelnuts are ground with the sugar and three whole eggs precisely so they cannot turn to butter. Grind nuts and sugar together in a food processor first, then add the whole eggs and run until genuinely smooth; a gritty paste gives a heavy, greasy cake.
Half a gillA gill is half a cup, so half a gill of orange flower water is 2 fluid ounces (about 1/4 cup). Orange flower waters vary a good deal in strength — start with 2 tablespoons and taste the batter, since the full quantity can read as soapy.
A slack ovenSlack means cool: somewhere around 300F, 325F at the most. A three-quarter-inch sheet of this batter should need roughly 30–40 minutes and is done when the centre springs back and a skewer comes out clean. Higher heat browns the nut sugars and dries the edges before the middle sets.
Egg counts and pan sizeBy modern large eggs, sixteen yolks is about 1 cup, twelve whites about 1 1/2 cups. The batter is scaled for a commercial sheet pan — for a home oven, halve everything and use a half-sheet (13 by 18 inches) lined with parchment, which is the modern equivalent of 'paper-covered'.
No leaveningThe rise comes entirely from the whipped whites. Fold them in last, in thirds, with the flour already dispersed, and stop while a few streaks remain rather than deflating the foam chasing a smooth batter.
The resting is not optional"Leave in a cool place for a few hours" — overnight is better. A warm, fresh nut sponge tears under the knife and will not take a clean fondant edge. Chill it, pare the sides square, then cut.
Curaçao and the glazeUse a plain orange curaçao or triple sec, brushed lightly on the underside only. The reduced apricot marmalade is a strained apricot jam cooked down until a spoonful holds its shape — it seals the crumb so the fondant does not soak in. Fondant should be warmed to about 100F and thinned with a little curaçao until it coats but flows off the corners.
YieldHalved, the recipe gives several dozen two-inch lozenges. Glazed petits fours keep two or three days in a single layer, covered, at cool room temperature; refrigeration makes the fondant weep.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) was Charles Ranhofer's summary of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is organised like a professional reference rather than a household book — hence the cross-references to a numbered apricot marmalade and a numbered fondant, and hence a batter scaled for a hotel sheet pan. The French title, biscuits aux noisettes, uses biscuit in its pastry sense: an egg-foam sponge leavened by whipped whites alone, the same family as biscuit de Savoie, not a cracker or an American quick bread. Hazelnut-and-orange-flower flavouring, sheet-baked sponge cut into lozenges, apricot glaze under poured fondant: this is the standard petit four assembly of the classical French repertoire as it was practised in the grand American restaurants of the Gilded Age, when Delmonico's set the pattern for fashionable dining in the United States.