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Bouchees Italienne
Place in a bowl four egg yolks with two ounces sugar; sharply beat with whisk five minutes. Carefully beat up the four egg whites to a stiff froth and add to the yolks, with one and a half ounces sifted flour, one teaspoon rum, and gently mix with skimmer until well amalgamated. Lightly butter six round tartlet moulds and fill with the preparation. Set in oven fifteen minutes. Remove, let rest for five minutes and unmould. Beat up the whites of three eggs to a stiff froth, add tablespoon powdered sugar and four drops vanilla essence, then evenly divide this preparation over the six bouchees, giving them dome-shaped forms; sprinkle a little powdered sugar over, place on a tin, set in a brisk oven two minutes. Remove, dress on a dish with a folded napkin and serve.
A small genoise-type sponge baked in tartlet moulds and capped with meringue. The original never names an oven temperature, so that is the first gap to fill.
- Oven temperaturesThe original gives no oven term for the first bake; a moderate oven, around 350F, is a reasonable modern guess for fifteen minutes in small tartlet moulds. The final browning calls for a "brisk oven," usually taken to mean roughly 400-425F, at which two minutes should be enough to colour the domes.
- Weights into cupsTwo ounces sugar is about 1/4 cup; one and a half ounces sifted flour is roughly 1/3 cup, measured after sifting. Weighing is better here, since the batter has no leavening beyond the whipped eggs and extra flour will flatten it.
- Skimmer means foldThe recipe's skimmer is being used here as a folding tool. Use a large silicone spatula and cut down through the batter rather than stirring, or the beaten whites collapse and the bouchees bake dense.
- Beating the yolksFive minutes of hand whisking with sugar is not padding; the yolks should lighten, thicken and fall in a ribbon. A stand mixer will reach the same point considerably faster.
- Tartlet mouldsSix round tartlet or shallow brioche moulds, or a standard muffin tin. Butter them and dust with flour or line the bases with parchment discs, since an unsweetened butter film alone often sticks in modern nonstick-free tins.
- The meringue toppingThree whites with only a tablespoon of powdered sugar gives a very lean, soft meringue that browns fast but stays barely set inside after two minutes. If soft-baked egg white is a concern for anyone at the table, use pasteurized whites.
- Rum and vanillaOne teaspoon rum in a batter this small is for aroma, not flavour depth; dark rum registers more than white. "Vanilla essence" here means extract, and four drops is a very small quantity - well under 1/8 teaspoon.
- Yield and servingSix individual cakes, one per person, best eaten within an hour or two while the meringue is still crisp on the outside. Dishing on a folded napkin was standard period presentation for such items.
Bouchee is simply French for "mouthful," used in professional kitchens for any small item meant to be eaten in one or two bites, from savoury puff-pastry cases to sweets like these. The dish belongs to the international hotel repertoire that filled American cookbooks around the turn of the twentieth century, when chefs trained in the French system worked in the large city hotels and their menus were transcribed for domestic readers. The Italienne tag appears to be menu convention rather than a geographic claim - meringue styles were commonly labelled Italian, French or Swiss, and such labels attached themselves loosely to many preparations. Note that the meringue here is uncooked whites simply whipped with sugar, which is a French meringue by modern definition.