No. 3372

Exquisites with Chestnuts

Exquis aux Marrons

Have ready a little firm lady finger paste (No. 3377), and with a pocket furnished with a three-eighths of an inch diameter socket dress it into small crowns an inch and a half in diameter, laying them on a sheet of paper; bake in a slack oven. When finished detach from the paper and hollow out the interiors of these crowns slightly on the flat side, then fill them up with chestnut puree; fasten together two by two, cover one side with a little apricot marmalade (No. 3675), and ice with vanilla fondant (No. 58); bestrew lightly all over with very finely chopped pistachios and with a channeled socket placed in a pocket dress in the center of each crown a rosette of Mocha cream.

← No. 3371 Cocoanut Kisses Fancy Cakes — Petits Fours No. 3373 Filbert Cakes with Rum—Small →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional pastry brigade and assumes you know his cross-references. Translated into current terms this is a coffee-and-chestnut sandwich cookie: piped ladyfinger rings, filled with chestnut purée, glazed with fondant and finished with a buttercream rosette.

Pocket and socketA "pocket furnished with a socket" is a piping bag fitted with a tube. Three-eighths of an inch is roughly a No. 6–7 plain round tip; the "channeled socket" at the end is a small star tip.
Slack ovenSlack is the coolest working range, conventionally given as about 250-300F. Ladyfinger paste piped this small wants to dry and set pale rather than colour, so err low; the recipe itself gives no time.
Lady finger pasteNo. 3377 is Ranhofer's ladyfinger paste (biscuit a la cuillere), a separated-egg sponge batter with whipped whites folded in, piped rather than spread. It is best piped and baked promptly, as it loses volume on standing.
Dress into crownsPipe rings an inch and a half across, not solid discs. Paper is the original support; parchment works.
Chestnut puréeChestnut puree -- Chestnut puree for pastry was generally sweetened and often vanilla-scented; the closest thing on a modern shelf is French creme de marrons. Canned unsweetened chestnut puree will need sugar and a little butter or cream beaten in to make it pipeable.
Apricot marmaladeNo. 3675 is a strained, boiled-down apricot jam used throughout the book as a glaze. Warm it and brush it thin; its job is to seal the crumb so the fondant does not soak in.
Vanilla fondantPoured fondant, not a butter icing. It must be warmed only to about 100F and loosened with a spoonful of syrup or water — overheated fondant dries dull and grainy.
Mocha creamCoffee buttercream. Pipe the rosettes after the fondant has set firm, or they will slide.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its petits fours chapter is essentially a working catalogue of the French pastry repertoire as it was practised in an American luxury restaurant — hundreds of numbered items, each cross-referenced to base pastes, fondants and marmalades kept standing in the kitchen. The chestnut filling places it in the autumn and winter end of the book, and marrons appear repeatedly in Ranhofer's sweets. The pairing with mocha cream reflects the period's fondness for coffee as a dessert flavour, and the pistachios scattered over white fondant give the colour contrast that a tray of petits fours was expected to supply.