No. 3369

Biscuits with Almonds—Iced

Biscuits Glaces aux Amandes

Put a pound of sugar in a basin with eight eggs; beat until it is frothy, then add six ounces of almonds thoroughly pounded with two egg-yolks and half a gill of maraschino; continue to beat until the preparation is quite light, then add eight ounces of rice flour, mixing it in gently, and four ounces of melted butter. Pour the preparation on a baking sheet covered with paper, spreading it to a layer one inch in thickness, and place this in a slack oven. Turn the cake over on a grate and keep it in a cool place to rest until the following day. Then wet it over with a brush dipped in maraschino; cover the top with a layer of reduced apricot marmalade (No. 3675) and glaze it with white fondant (No. 58) flavored with maraschino and at once scatter chopped burnt almonds over the entire surface. After the icing is firm cut the cake into small rectangulars an inch and a half long and three-quarters of an inch wide.

← No. 3368 Hazel-Nut Biscuits Fancy Cakes — Petits Fours No. 3370 Chocolate Chestnuts →

For the Modern Kitchen

A génoise-style sheet baked thin, rested overnight, then glazed and cut into petits fours. The whole method hinges on the resting day: a fresh, warm cake tears under the knife and soaks up the glaze, while a day-old one cuts cleanly into the small rectangles that are the point of the exercise.

MaraschinoThis means the clear, dry Dalmatian cherry liqueur (Luxardo and similar), not the sugary red syrup from a jar of cocktail cherries. Half a gill is a quarter cup, about 2 fl oz.
Slack ovenThe coolest working range of a range oven, conventionally taken as roughly 300-325F. At an inch thick the sheet wants gentle heat so the centre sets before the almond-rich edges colour; the recipe gives no time, so test with a skewer.
Almonds"Thoroughly pounded with two egg-yolks" means worked to a smooth paste, not just ground. A food processor does it in a minute; the yolks keep the almonds from oiling into butter. Six ounces of blanched almonds is about 1 1/4 cups whole.
Rice flourPlain white rice flour, finely milled - not glutinous or sweet rice flour, which behaves entirely differently. It gives a short, sandy crumb.
Eggs and butterEight whole eggs plus the two yolks in the almond paste. Let the melted butter cool to barely warm and fold it in last, in a thin stream, or it will knock the air out of the foam.
The panAn inch of batter over a paper-lined sheet needs a rim or a cake frame to hold its edges; the recipe gives no pan size, and a rimmed half-sheet pan (13x18 in) may be larger than this quantity will fill to a full inch.
Reduced apricot marmaladeApricot jam boiled down and pushed through a sieve until it is thick enough to set as a thin, tacky seal. Its job is to stop the fondant sinking into the crumb, so brush it hot and let it firm before glazing.
Burnt almondsPeriod usage for almonds cooked in caramel until dark and brittle, then chopped — praline, in other words, not scorched nuts. Scatter them while the fondant is still wet or they will not hold.
Cutting and yieldA long thin blade wiped between cuts, and warm it if the fondant drags. At 1 1/2 by 3/4 inches the sheet gives a banquet quantity of small cakes; halving the recipe is reasonable.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry sits in a long run of petits fours glacés — the small iced cakes that closed a formal dinner alongside ices and fruit. The construction is thoroughly French: a whisked egg-foam biscuit lightened with rice flour rather than wheat, rested, masked with apricot, glazed with fondant and cut down into uniform bites. Maraschino, distilled from Marasca cherries and long associated with Zara on the Dalmatian coast, was one of the standard flavourings of nineteenth-century confectionery, valued because it perfumes without colouring; Ranhofer uses it three times over here, in the batter, as a soaking wash and in the fondant. The instruction to bake the day before and finish the next reads as practicality rather than fussiness.