No. 3415

Crowns

Couronnes

For twelve crowns: Take thirty-six pounds of dough; divide it into twelve parts of three pounds each, and mold all the pieces into separate balls; flatten them to a third of their thickness. Lay these in lightly floured boxes and leave them to rise for half an hour; then remove them from the boxes and lay them on the table, one by one, to flatten out; roll over in four and finally stretch out to the shape of a roll twenty-six inches long. As soon as they are done return them to the boxes and leave them to rise for twenty-five to thirty minutes, then take one of them from its box and lay it on the table; with a wooden rolling-pin, as described in the bread-making utensils, split the dough through its whole length without separating it entirely, forming a depression along the center an eighth of an inch in thickness, separating the dough on each side, two and a half inches apart; then take up the furthest edge of the dough, and raising it, bring it forward toward yourself in such a manner as to partially envelop the other edge of the dough. Bring the two ends together and fasten so as to form a crown. Transfer this into another long box, as explained in No. 3406, covered inside with a piece of coarse linen, laying the split side underneath: continue to mold all the other balls in a like manner, then cover and leave for an hour and a half. As soon as they are suffieiently raised take the round board with a handle, as denoted in No. 3406, in the right hand, and lay it on the right of one of the first molded crowns, slanting it slightly against the crown; at the same time with the left hand take hold of the piece of linen which extends beyond the crown on its left, and with a deft stroke turn the crown over on the board without injuring its shape; transfer this crown on the board and slip it on to the peel, then push it at once into the oven. Continue the same operation for all the other crowns until they are in the oven and leave them there for thirty to thirty-five minutes.

← No. 3414 Crescents with Butter—Fine Bakery & Breads No. 3416 Jockos—French Loaves →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer is writing for the bakeshop at Delmonico's, where dough was mixed in barrel quantities and baked in a brick oven. The shaping is the whole point of the recipe; everything else scales down without trouble.

Scale it downThirty-six pounds of dough makes twelve three-pound crowns. A three-pound crown is about as much as a home oven will take; a 1½-pound piece shaped the same way gives a proportionately smaller ring.
The dough itselfNo formula is given on this page; the bakeshop would have had bread dough already made, and Ranhofer's bread formulas appear elsewhere in this section. A firm French-bread dough behaves as described; a slack, very wet dough will not hold the split.
Boxes and linenThe "boxes" are wooden proofing troughs and the coarse linen is a baker's couche. A heavy unwashed linen cloth dusted with flour, pleated between loaves, does the same job. The "round board with a handle" is a flipping board; a thin cutting board or an inverted sheet pan works.
The hinge: the splitPressing the rolling pin down the length of the roll to leave an eighth-inch web, then folding the far lip over the near one, is what creates the crown's open seam. Flour the pin and the dough surface generously or the two faces weld shut during the final rise and the loaf bakes closed.
Seam side downThe crown proofs with the split underneath and is turned over onto the board just before loading, so it enters the oven split up. That inversion is the reason for the linen and the board — it is also where a carelessly handled loaf collapses.
Oven heatRanhofer gives no temperature, only a bake of thirty to thirty-five minutes. A hot bread oven — in the region of 450F, eased back toward the end — is a reasonable modern equivalent for a three-pound crown. Steam for the first ten minutes, from a pan of boiling water or a covered vessel, helps the crust.
Total proofHalf an hour after rounding, 25 to 30 minutes after the roll is stretched, and an hour and a half after shaping — about two and a half hours of proofing as written, not counting whatever bulk fermentation the dough had already had. In a warm modern kitchen the final rise may run shorter; judge by the dough, which should spring back slowly when pressed.
YieldA single three-pound crown is a large table loaf, enough for eight to twelve people.

A Little History

The couronne — crown — is one of the standard shapes of the French baker's repertoire, a ring built so that it gives far more crust than the same weight of dough in a plain loaf. Charles Ranhofer set it among a long run of bread formulas in The Epicurean (1894) because Delmonico's ran its own bakeshop and turned out its own rolls, crescents and table breads daily rather than buying them in. The instructions read oddly to a home cook precisely because they are shop instructions: they assume a trough of dough already made, a wooden pin kept for splitting, a peel and a linen couche. The elaborate business with the board and the cloth is the professional answer to a real problem — how to move a fully proofed, deliberately weakened ring of dough into a hot oven without deflating or distorting it — and bakers still do it essentially the same way.