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Table
Miss Beaty.
Boil loaf sugar as for candy, and rub it over a stiff form, made for the purpose, of stiff paper, which must be well buttered; set it on a table, and begin at the bottom and stick on to this frame with the sugar a row of macaroons, kisses, or other ornamental articles, and continue till the whole is covered. When cold draw out the pasteboard form and set the pyramid in the centre of the table with a small bit of wax candle burning within, and it looks very beautiful.
This is a croquembouche in all but name: a cone of small confections cemented with boiled sugar. The recipe assumes you already know how to cook sugar and how to judge it by eye, so most of the modern work is in the thermometer and the geometry.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar broken from a hard cone, prized because it was clean and free of molasses. Ordinary granulated white sugar is the direct equivalent; no substitution adjustment is needed.
- "Boil as for candy"In modern terms this means taking the syrup to about the hard-crack stage, roughly 300-310F, so it sets hard and holds weight; the recipe gives no temperature and expects the cook to judge by eye. Syrup stopped short of that range stays soft and the pyramid can slump; taken much past it, the sugar begins to colour and taste burnt. Sugar with a spoonful of water and a pinch of cream of tartar or a few drops of lemon juice will resist crystallising.
- The form"Stiff paper" or pasteboard means a cone rolled from card, buttered so the sugar releases. A modern metal or plastic croquembouche cone works better and can be lined with buttered parchment or lightly oiled foil. Build on the outside of the cone, as directed, not inside it.
- Kisses and macaroonsNineteenth-century "kisses" are small baked meringues, and "macaroons" here are the almond-paste rounds, not the Parisian sandwich cookie. Any dry, light, roughly uniform confection will do; anything moist will soften the sugar and let the wall creep.
- Handling hot sugarDip each piece rather than pouring, and keep the syrup fluid over the barest heat or in a pan of hot water. Hard-crack sugar burns far worse than boiling water, so work with tongs or a fork, not fingers, and keep a bowl of cold water at hand.
- Drawing out the formWait until the structure is fully cold and the sugar is glassy, then twist the cone free slowly. If it sticks, warm the outside of the cone briefly rather than pulling. A cracked pyramid can be patched with a fresh dab of syrup.
- The candleA hollow sugar shell with a lit wick inside is a genuine fire risk on a dressed table: sugar melts, the shell can drop onto the flame, and the crumbs are dry tinder. A small battery tealight gives the same glow through the gaps.
- Yield and servingThe number of confections depends entirely on the size of the cone and of the pieces, and a table-centre pyramid will take several dozen. It is a centrepiece meant to be broken apart at the end of the meal, and it does not keep: humidity turns the sugar sticky and the structure sags.
Sugar architecture of this kind descends from the French pièce montée, the built sugar centrepiece generally associated with the early nineteenth century and with Antonin Carême, whose confectionery designs borrowed openly from classical building. By the 1870s the idea had been simplified for households with a good stove and no pastry chef: a paper cone, a pan of boiled sugar, and a tray of bought or home-made macaroons stood in for the architect's temple. The Home Cook Book presents itself as compiled from contributions by Canadian women and was sold in aid of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, though such charity compilations also borrowed heavily from earlier American books; this is why so many entries carry a contributor's name like Miss Beaty rather than an author's voice, and the collection mixes plain daily cooking with a handful of showpieces like this one, kept for the moment when a hostess had guests to impress. The lit candle inside is the period's characteristic touch, of a piece with the illuminated jellies and spun-sugar veils that appear on dessert tables of the 1870s.