No. 3639

Windmill

Moulin a Vent

This pyramid, though quite an old idea, is always sure to be well received. The great variety of its details, and the figures which can be added to it, representing scenes of country life, give it an attractive appearance which can hardly be obtained in architectural pyramids. Although its execution offers no great difficulties, yet great care and exactitude must be taken in the cutting out of the different pieces of which it is composed, for there is the essential point for its successful completion. The cut is a reduction of the original, and can thus serve as a basis for its execution, either in multiplying or diminishing its dimensions, according to the desired size of the pyramid. Cut out with great precision patterns of strong cardboard, and, if to be used for nougat, oil them well. The part of the pyramid representing the walls is made of white nougat (No. 3622) with chopped almonds, rolled on the marble to about one-quarter of an inch thick, and with the help of oiled patterns cut out rapidly the windows and the doors. The roof is of nougat covered with imitation of tiles made of almond paste (No. 125) colored a light chocolate or a light brick red, rolled to a sheet one-sixteenth of an inch thick. Cut out with a tin circular cutter and then put on, beginning with the bottom layer, each layer successively overlapping the other. The large platform and the doors are of ordinary brown nougat (No. 3621), the railing of lightly colored chocolate sugar, and composed of pieces cut with a knife and stuck together with melted sugar. The windows are made of sugar boiled to three hundred and thirty degrees, very clear, rolled thin and placed in the interior.

The rustic beams are made of chocolate pulled sugar (No. 3618), the stairways of brown nougat and the wings of the mill are composed of four pieces of wire, covered and rolled in brown cooked sugar, and of white pulled sugar melted and rolled thin, and cut out with scissors. The little sticks across the wings are made of lightly colored chocolate sugar and put on about one-eighth of an inch apart. The rock or base is twelve inches high, and is composed of two wood platforms, supported by a wood framework, around which bunches of crumpled paper are put on, which is then covered with green nougat, rolled thin and garnished with herbs and plants imitated with green pulled sugar. This whole pyramid can also be made of clear sugar exclusively, boiled to three hundred and thirty-five degrees, very transparent, melted over and poured on a tracing of patterns on marble and filled in as described. Or, further yet, of gum paste (No. 3624) exclusively, in natural colors or white, taking great care, however, not to set up the pieces until each one is perfectly dry. The windows could then be imitated by thin sheets of mica or gelatine, and the base of gum paste covered with royal icing (No. 101). Or, the ambitious workman can imitate with gum paste, a miller, a bag on his shoulder, going up the stairway, or two peasants eating and drinking, or a peasant woman with children around her, and many other subjects of country life and customs.

← No. 3638 Wheelbarrow Filled with Flowers on a Socle Large Show Pieces No. 3639a The Prolific Tree →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a construction project rather than a dish: a pastillage-and-sugar windmill assembled from flat cut panels. The instructions assume you already have Ranhofer's numbered base recipes for nougat, almond paste, pulled sugar and gum paste, and that you can work hot sugar at speed.

The hinge: cut while the nougat is hotAlmond nougat rolled a quarter-inch thick stays workable only briefly before it turns brittle and shatters under the knife, which is why Ranhofer says to cut the windows and doors "rapidly." Have every oiled cardboard pattern laid out before the batch comes off the heat; keeping the sheet warm enough to stay pliable is what makes this possible.
Sugar degreesThree hundred and thirty to three hundred and thirty-five degrees (Ranhofer works in Fahrenheit) is past hard crack and at the threshold of caramelisation. Use a digital thermometer, pull the pan the moment it reads, and shock the base in water for a few seconds to stop carryover, or the "very clear" windows will go amber.
Nougat here is not the confection you buyRanhofer's white nougat (No. 3622) and brown nougat (No. 3621) are cooked sugar bound with chopped or ground almonds, rolled into sheets — closer to what a modern pastry kitchen calls nougatine than to nougat de Montélimar. It is a structural material, chosen because it holds a cut edge and does not sag.
Gum paste and drying timeGum paste (pastillage) panels of this size need to dry flat, turned once or twice, for at least twenty-four to forty-eight hours in a dry room before assembly. Setting up pieces that are dry on one face only is the usual cause of a collapse a day later, which is why the original insists on it.
Inedible partsThe wire armature in the sails, the wood platforms, the crumpled paper packing in the rock and the mica window panes are structural, not food. Keep them out of contact with anything that will be eaten, and treat the whole piece as display; use gelatine sheets rather than mica if any part of it will be served.
ColouringWhere the text calls for "light chocolate or light brick red" almond paste and "lightly colored chocolate sugar," modern gel pastes give the same shades with far less added liquid, which matters because water softens almond paste and clouds boiled sugar. Cocoa powder works for the brown tones in almond paste but not in pulled sugar.
Scale and equipmentThe base alone is twelve inches high; the finished height is not stated, and the text says the dimensions may be multiplied or diminished at will, so decide the size first and plan for a table that will take the weight. A marble slab, silicone mats, a heat lamp or sugar lamp, a circular cutter for the roof tiles and gloves for handling pulled sugar are the practical minimum.
The illustration is the patternRanhofer says the engraving is a reduction of the original and should be scaled up or down as needed. Enlarge it on a photocopier or projector to the height you want, transfer to stiff card, and oil the templates before they touch hot nougat.

A Little History

The pièce montée — the architectural sugar centrepiece — was inherited by nineteenth-century American kitchens from the French tradition codified by Antonin Carême, who built temples, ruins and pavilions in pastillage and treated confectionery as a branch of architecture. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for more than thirty years, published The Epicurean in 1894 with a long section of these show pieces because a Gilded Age banquet was judged partly on what stood on the table before anyone ate. The windmill, which Ranhofer himself calls "quite an old idea," belongs to the rustic or genre variety rather than the classical: mills, cottages, wheelbarrows and peasant figures, a sugar version of the pastoral scenes that decorated porcelain and painted panels of the period. It is often assumed that such pieces were rarely eaten, and that their point lay less in feeding anyone than in displaying the number of skilled hands a kitchen could spare for work that produced no dinner at all.