No. 3398

Pignon Rocks with White and Pink Almonds

Rochers aux Pignons aux Amandes Blanches et Roses

Whip eight egg-whites in a basin with a pound of icing sugar, a part to be flavored with vanilla (No. 3165); beat over a very slow fire and as soon as it begins to feel light and slightly warm take the basin from the fire and continue the beating process until perfectly light, then add one pound of pignons, mixing them in gently, or shredded almonds mixed the same. Dress the preparation with a fork into balls about an inch in diameter, lay them on waxed baking sheets and bake in a very slack oven. For the pink rocks with almonds or pignons mix in the preparation before adding the nuts one tablespoonful of spirit of raspberry and a little carmine, then finish as above.

← No. 3397 Quillets-Small Fancy Cakes — Petits Fours No. 3399 Rocks with Orangeade →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a Swiss-meringue rocher: whites and sugar warmed together, whipped cold, then loaded with nuts and dried rather than baked. The hinge is heat control at both stages.

Warming the whites"Beat over a very slow fire" means gentle heat, most safely a bowl set over barely simmering water, whisking constantly until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is warm to the touch; the recipe's own gauge is "light and slightly warm," which in modern terms is somewhere around 120-130F. Take it off the heat before it approaches a scramble, then whip off the heat until stiff, glossy and cool.
A very slack ovenSlack is conventionally read as about 250-275F, with "very slack" at the lower end; the book itself gives no temperature. Expect something in the region of an hour to an hour and a half, until crisp outside and set through, not browned. If they colour, the oven is too hot.
PignonsPine nuts. A pound is a substantial outlay today; shredded (slivered) almonds are the recipe's own stated alternative and behave identically. Toasting the pine nuts is not called for and will darken the finished rocks.
ProportionsEight whites is about 1 cup or 240 g, against 1 lb (450 g) icing sugar and 1 lb nuts. Icing sugar here means finely pulverised sugar, i.e. confectioners' sugar; if you substitute granulated it will need longer whipping to dissolve.
No. 3165A cross-reference to Ranhofer's vanilla preparation elsewhere in the book (not reproduced here). Use a teaspoon of vanilla extract or the scrapings of a pod rubbed into some of the sugar; note the original flavours only part of the batch.
Spirit of raspberry and carmineSpirit of raspberry was an alcoholic raspberry essence — substitute a teaspoon of raspberry extract or framboise. Carmine is cochineal, still sold as a natural red colouring; a drop or two of any red food colour does the same job. Add both before the nuts, or the folding will deflate the meringue.
Shaping and sheets"Waxed baking sheets" means sheets rubbed with wax or greased; parchment or a silicone mat is better and releases cleanly. Two forks make craggy inch balls faster than one; space them an inch apart since they barely spread.
YieldA large batch: something over a pound each of sugar and nuts plus eight whites will give a great many one-inch pieces, well upward of fifty, at petit-four scale. Store airtight the moment they are cool — meringue takes up humidity and goes leathery.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of what he cooked in some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the petits fours chapters read like an inventory of a professional pastry department rather than a home cookbook: hundreds of numbered items, each assuming you have the others to hand. Rocher means rock, a name often given to rough-surfaced confections, and a meringue-and-nut version sits alongside the pine-nut and almond rochers still sold in French and Italian pastry shops. Pignons — pine nuts — were the more expensive and more Mediterranean choice, and Ranhofer adds a casual "or shredded almonds mixed the same." The pink pair is characteristic of the period's dessert tables, where petits fours were arranged for colour contrast as much as flavour, and carmine from cochineal insects was the standard red of the confectioner's shelf long before coal-tar dyes displaced it.