No. 3639a

The Prolific Tree

L'Arbre Prodigieux

In order to make a tree two feet in height cut the wires varying from four to fourteen inches in length. Prepare some nougat with chopped almonds (No. 3621), incorporating sufficient cocoa to color it brown; roll out enough of this to be able to cut out a piece a quarter of an inch thick, sixteen inches long and seven inches wide in the part intended for the base and slightly narrower for the top. Wrap this piece of nougat around a wooden support in imitation of the trunk of a tree and leave to cool; coat the wires with nougat proportionately thick according to their length, and thicker on the ends that are to be attached to the trunk; bend them as soon as covered to shape them into knotty and irregular boughs, and leave to cool. Color some white nougat (No. 3622) a pistachio green, roll it out on a marble to a quarter of an inch in thickness, and from it cut a round bottom sixteen inches in diameter, then attach it to a board of the same size. At two inches from the edge fasten the trunk of the tree on solidly and decorate it with the boughs, having the heaviest attached to the trunk, and the lighter ones attached to these. Melt some cooked sugar, mix in a little cocoa and chopped almonds, and with a knife coat over the trunk and the branches to imitate the bark and the roots at the foot of the tree. Pull some dark green-colored sugar, a very little at a time, and with it form leaves as described in No. 3618; trim the branches with these, and also with cherries made of almond paste (No. 125) and glazed, or else substitute pears or little apples, or better still green almonds, but any imitated fruit can be used. Place a ladder against the tree, made of wire covered with chocolate-colored sugar, and on this stand a small image to represent a cupid stealing the fruit, and at one side another cupid receiving the picked fruit. Make these figures of gum paste (No. 3624). Make the boughs and bushes around the foot of the tree of pulled sugar (No. 3618), also the rope that surrounds it. These trees can be varied as regards both size and subject. One or more trees can be arranged on a single board without any figures or subjects.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a sugar showpiece rather than something to eat off a plate, and it assumes a pastry cook who already knows Ranhofer's cross-referenced base recipes for nougat, pulled sugar, almond paste and gum paste. The construction logic is sound; the vocabulary and the working conditions are what need translating.

"Nougat" here is nougatineRanhofer's No. 3621 is almond nougat in the French confectioner's sense: sugar cooked to a light caramel and stirred with chopped blanched almonds, then rolled hot on oiled marble. It is not the aerated white chewy nougat of a candy bar. No. 3622, the "white nougat," is a paler preparation that the recipe expects you to roll out and tint pistachio green; its make-up is given in that separate entry.
Work hot, and only onceNougatine sets within a minute or two of leaving the marble. Cut and shape it while it is still pliable, and keep the working batch warm — a low oven at about 175F, or under a heat lamp — returning it to soften as needed. Once it goes brittle, reheating repeatedly darkens it and eventually makes it bitter.
Sugar temperaturesPulled sugar for the leaves and undergrowth (No. 3618) is cooked to about the hard-crack stage, roughly 300–310F, and modern practice adds a little glucose or a few drops of acid to guard against graining. The "melted cooked sugar" used as bark glue is cooked sugar loosened with cocoa and chopped almonds; it works as a hot-melt adhesive and sets quickly.
The armature is not foodThe wooden support, the wires and the board are structure, not ingredients. Use stainless steel florist's wire rather than galvanised, since galvanised wire carries a zinc coating you do not want against warm sugar, and treat the whole piece as display work. Nothing that has been on a wire should be served.
Scale and materials listA two-foot tree with a sixteen-inch base is a substantial job: several pounds of sugar and almonds go into the nougatine, the pulled sugar and the glue between them, plus almond paste and gum paste for the fruit and figures. Cut the wires first, as instructed, from four to fourteen inches; the long ones become the primary boughs.
Humidity ruins itPulled sugar leaves absorb moisture from the air and go tacky, then dull, then slump. Work on a dry day, keep a dehumidifier or silica gel near the finished piece, and store the completed tree under a cover.
The gum paste figuresNo. 3624 is gum paste — sugar, starch and gum tragacanth — which dries rock hard and is technically edible but never intended to be eaten. Modern equivalents are the same thing sold as flower paste or pastillage. Model the cupids a day ahead so they are fully dry before they go on the ladder.
Substitutions the original invitesThe closing lines are the useful part: the fruit can be anything you can model, and the whole subject is optional. A pair of plain trees on one board, with no figures, is a legitimate reading of the recipe and cuts the work substantially.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he assembled after some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it belongs to a section of pièces montées — windmills, temples, baskets, trees — that were carried into the dining room as centerpieces rather than courses. The tradition is generally traced to Antonin Carême, who in the early nineteenth century treated confectionery architecture as a branch of building and published engraved plates of sugar ruins and pavilions; by Ranhofer's day the vocabulary had settled into a working craft taught in professional kitchens. Cupids raiding an orchard was a stock decorative conceit of the period, borrowed from painting and porcelain, and the instruction that "any imitated fruit can be used" tells you these pieces were built to the season and to whatever a banquet was celebrating. Almost nothing on the table was meant to be eaten; the point was to demonstrate that the house employed men who could do this.