No. 3403

Strawberry Tartlets

Tartelettes de Fraises

Line some oval-shaped small cake molds with a thin coating of almond paste (No. 124). Crush eight ounces of pounded almonds with eight ounces of sugar, two ounces of strawberry marmalade (No. 3678), a little maraschino and two egg-whites; make this into a smooth but not too fine paste, color it slightly with carmine and incorporate five well-beaten egg-whites into which has been mixed an ounce of sugar, continuing to beat all the time. Fill the molds to the tops with this, bestrew the surfaces with powdered sugar and cook in a slow oven; unmold when done, cool off and ice over with fondant (No. 58) flavored with strawberry.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a macaroon batter baked in a shell of almond paste, not a pastry tart. Everything hinges on treating the second addition of whites as a meringue and keeping the oven low enough that the tops set without coloring.

The hinge: fold, don't stirThe two egg whites are worked into the almond-sugar mixture to make a stiff paste; the five well-beaten whites with an ounce of sugar are a meringue and must be folded in with a spatula in three additions. Beating them in, as "continuing to beat all the time" might suggest, will knock out the air and give you a dense, leathery cake.
Pounded almondsBlanched almond flour, 8 oz by weight, is the closest modern equivalent. Almonds were commonly pounded with sugar to keep them from oiling; if you grind your own, pulse them with some of the sugar and stop while the texture is still slightly gritty.
Strawberry marmaladeHis No. 3678 is a cooked strawberry preserve; period marmalades were generally thicker and more reduced than modern jam. Two ounces of a loose jam will make the batter slack, so cook a good preserve down until a spoon drawn through leaves a clean track, then cool it before using.
Slow ovenRanhofer says only 'slow'; read that as somewhere in the region of 275 to 300F, on a middle rack. These want to dry and set rather than brown; expect roughly 25 to 30 minutes for tartlet-sized molds, and judge by touch — done when the tops are firm to a light touch and the edges just pull from the tin.
CarmineCarmine is derived from cochineal and is still sold as a food color. The recipe says only to color it 'slightly'; add a very little at a time so the finished cakes read pale pink.
The moldsOval barquette or small boat molds of about 2 to 2 1/2 inches. Line them with almond paste rolled very thin, no more than 1/8 inch, and press it well into the corners. Butter the tins first even with the paste lining.
Fondant icingHis No. 58 is poured fondant, which must be warmed to about 100F — no hotter, or it loses its gloss — thinned with a little water or syrup and flavored with strawberry. Ice the cakes only when completely cold.
Maraschino'A little' is a teaspoon or two. Use a true maraschino liqueur rather than the syrup from a jar of cherries, which is sugar and flavoring and will throw the batter off.
YieldThe quantities should give roughly two dozen or so small tartlets, depending on the size of the molds. They keep two or three days in a tin.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the repertoire he cooked at Delmonico's in New York, and the petits fours chapter is essentially a French pastry-shop catalogue transplanted to Manhattan — each item cross-referenced to a base preparation like the almond paste and the fondant, on the assumption that a professional kitchen had those standing by. Tartelettes like these belong to the family of small almond-paste cakes that French pastry cooks built around a macaroon batter, which also gave a use for egg whites left over from the yolk-heavy creams and sauces made elsewhere in the kitchen. The carmine coloring is characteristic of the period: cochineal, ground from dried scale insects, was the standard red for confectionery well before coal-tar dyes were trusted in food, and a faint blush of it signaled fruit flavor to a diner as clearly as the strawberry fondant on top.