No. 3373

Filbert Cakes with Rum—Small

Petits Gateaux d'Avelines au Rhum

Roast half a pound of filberts; clean them well by removing their outer reddish skins, then pound with three-quarters of a pound of sugar, two eggs and half a gill of rum, making it into quite a fine paste; lay this in a vessel and soften it gradually with eight egg-yolks, continuing to beat until it is frothy, then add two ounces of finely shredded citron, four ounces of potato fecula, four ounces of melted butter and lastly six firmly beaten egg-whites. Pour this paste on a buttered sheet covered with paper, spread it out to half an inch in thickness and cook in a slow oven. Turn the cake over on a grate when done and leave to cool and set until the following day. Pare and cut it either in lozenges, oblongs or other shapes; steep each one slightly in Jamaica rum and ice over, dipping them into Jamaica rum fondant (No. 58); bestrew the cakes with chopped-up roasted filberts.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A rum-soaked hazelnut sponge, baked flat, rested a day, then cut and glazed as petits fours. The overnight rest is not optional padding — a half-inch nut sheet cut warm will tear and refuse to take fondant cleanly.

Filberts are hazelnutsRoast in a moderate oven (around 350F) for 10-12 minutes, then rub the warm nuts in a coarse towel to shed the reddish skins; the recipe itself gives no temperature. Skin left behind tastes astringent and will speckle the crumb.
Potato feculaPotato starch, sold as potato starch or fécule; not potato flour, which is ground dried potato and behaves nothing like it. Cornstarch is the nearest substitute if potato starch is unavailable.
A gillHalf a cup, so half a gill is 4 tablespoons of rum in the nut paste. The Jamaica rum for steeping and for the fondant is additional and unmeasured; the recipe gives no quantity for either.
A slow ovenConventionally in the region of 300-325F; the recipe gives no temperature and no time, so a half-inch sheet wants watching rather than timing. This batter is nearly all nuts, sugar and eggs; a hotter oven browns the surface and dries the edges before the middle sets.
The eggsTwo whole eggs into the nut paste, then eight yolks beaten in until frothy, then six whites beaten firm and folded last: about ten eggs in all, since the yolks and whites overlap. That is a great deal of egg structure against only 4 oz of starch, so fold the whites in gently and bake at once.
Pan and thicknessButter a half-sheet pan (roughly 13 by 18 inches), line with parchment, butter again; that is about the right area for spreading this batter half an inch thick, but judge by the depth rather than the pan. A smaller pan will run thick and stay damp at the centre.
CitronCandied citron peel, still sold in blocks around the winter holidays. Shred it fine and toss it in a little of the potato starch so it suspends rather than sinking.
FondantNo. 58 is Ranhofer's own cross-reference for fondant, here to be flavoured with rum. Poured fondant sold for cake work does the same job; warm it gently, to about body temperature, or it dries dull instead of glossy.
YieldThe recipe gives no yield; how many pieces a sheet gives depends entirely on how small the lozenges or oblongs are cut. Trim the four dry edges before cutting; they are the pastry cook's own.

A Little History

Aveline is the French for the cultivated hazelnut, and "filbert" is the older English name for the same nut. The recipe comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the vast compendium he assembled from decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it sits in a long run of numbered petits fours: sheets of nut or chestnut sponge, baked flat, rested, cut into geometric shapes and glazed. That production logic is the point. A restaurant turning out mignardises by the hundred could hardly have shaped each one individually, and the sheet-bake-rest-cut-dip sequence would have let one pastry cook produce dozens of identical pieces from a single tray. The heavy reliance on potato starch rather than wheat flour is characteristic of the nineteenth-century French repertoire, where fécule gave nut cakes a lighter, shorter crumb than flour would; and the insistence on Jamaica rum reflects a period when rum was graded and priced by island of origin, the dark Jamaican style being the assertive one you would want against roasted hazelnut and citron.