No. 3404

Venetians

Venitiens

Chop up a pound of almonds with a quarter of a pound of peeled, dried pistachios, and press them through a sieve (Fig. 96). Put sixteen egg-yolks into a basin with a pound and a quarter of sugar; beat till a light mixture is obtained, then add the powdered almonds, two ounces of fecula and six firmly beaten egg-whites. Turn this preparation on a baking sheet covered with paper in three-quarters of an inch thick layers and cook it in a slack oven; when done unmold on a grate, leaving it there until quite cold. Cover it with a thick layer of apricot marmalade (No. 3675) and bestrew with shredded pistachios. As soon as the apricot is hard cut the cake into rectangulars two inches long by one inch wide.

BAKERY (Boulangerie).

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For the Modern Kitchen

A rich almond-pistachio sheet cake, glazed with apricot and cut into bars. Ranhofer's instructions assume a professional pastry kitchen, so a few of his terms and quantities need translating.

FeculaIn The Epicurean this means potato starch. Two ounces is roughly 1/3 to 1/2 cup by volume depending on which starch you use; cornstarch is an acceptable stand-in, though potato starch may give a softer crumb.
A slack oven300 to 325F. The batter is nearly all egg, sugar and nut, and it browns fast; at higher heat the surface sets and cracks before the centre is done. A 3/4-inch layer on a half-sheet pan will take roughly 25 to 35 minutes, until the top springs back and a tester comes out clean.
Grinding the nuts"Chop up and press through a sieve" is the hand method for nut flour. In a food processor, pulse the almonds and pistachios with a few spoonfuls of the weighed sugar; the sugar absorbs oil and keeps the nuts from turning to paste. The almonds should be blanched and skinned unless you want the flecks.
The egg proportionSixteen yolks to only six whites appears to be intentional rather than a misprint. The yolks and sugar are beaten until light and thick, which provides much of the structure; the whites are folded in last and lighten it. Fold in thirds and stop while streaks are just gone.
Apricot marmaladeRanhofer's No. 3675 is his apricot marmalade, a thick sieved preserve. Good apricot jam, warmed and pushed through a sieve to remove skins, then boiled a minute or two, does the same job. Spread it while hot and leave it to firm before cutting.
CuttingChill the glazed slab and use a long thin knife wiped clean between cuts. Trim the four edges square first, then cut into 2 by 1 inch bars. Pistachios go on the wet glaze, not after it hardens.
YieldA trimmed half-sheet slab cut into 2 by 1 inch bars gives on the order of 90 to 100 petits fours, depending on the pan and how much you trim. They keep a few days in a tin.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and its petits fours chapter is essentially a French pastry-shop manual transplanted to Manhattan. Small iced and glazed cakes cut from a baked slab were a fixture of the nineteenth-century buffet and dessert service, where the point was uniformity and volume: one sheet, one glaze, dozens of identical bars. The name simply reflects the period habit of labelling pastries after cities and regions; the association with Venice is decorative rather than documented, and the pistachio green may be as much of the connection as there ever was. What dates the recipe most clearly is the egg count. Sixteen yolks with no chemical leavening at all was normal in a kitchen where eggs were cheap, labour was cheaper, and a pastry cook could be set to beating yolks and sugar by hand for as long as it took.