To Prepare Hollow Crusts

Hollowed out crusts are used for serving small garnishings composed of purees, game fillets, and also boned small birds, such as larks and reed-birds; they are also employed to serve with poached eggs, after filling the hollow space with some garnishing. Hollow crusts are made of bread crumb, timbale paste or puff paste.

Bread Crumb Crusts are cut oval and half heart shaped (Figs. 42 and 43); they are two inches long and three quarters of an inch thick; make incisions on one side near the edge, using for this a small knife; brown both sides in a sautoir with clarified butter, then drain them to open and scoop out the crumb.

Crusts made of Timbale Paste are formed from an oval layer of paste, three-sixteenths of an inch thick; they are shaped in unbuttered tin rings, half an inch high, either oval or round, plain or channelled (Figs. 44 and 44a); the paste is cut flush with the top of the ring, the ring is now removed and the outside edge of the paste is pinched prettily, the top also to form the crest; let dry for a few minutes; they are now to be placed in larger buttered rings, or surrounded with bands of buttered paper to support the paste while cooking; line the inside with buttered paper and fill with raw rice; cook in a moderate oven; when done remove from the rings, empty out the rice, brush the crusts with an egg-wash and put in the oven to color nicely.

To Make Puff Paste Crusts Plain or with Fluted Cutter.—Cut the paste round or oval shaped in any desired size, arrange them on a moist baking sheet, a short distance apart, and prick them; moisten the edges with a brush and apply around this a band of the same paste three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness by five-sixteenths of an inch in width; fasten the ends of the band together, egg the surface and bake these crusts in a moderate oven the same as small bouchees.