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Feuilletees, Parisienne
Prepare a creme patissiere. Roll out as thin as possible a half pound puff paste on a lightly floured table, then cut it in six even pieces three inches square, fold up each piece (double), open again, then lightly wet the edge of each half. Spread a tablespoon of creme patissiere over each, being careful not to spread any at the edges, fold up, gently press down both edges and lightly wet the surface on one side only. Have a little powdered sugar on a plate, turn the wet side of each over the sugar, arrange the cakes on a lightly wetted baking sheet plain side downward, then set in a brisk oven for fifteen minutes, remove, dress on a dish with a folded napkin and serve.
A turnover of puff paste and pastry cream, glazed with sugar that caramelises in the oven's heat. The book assumes you have a batch of crème pâtissière already made and a competent hand with pastry.
- The hinge: seal cold, bake hotThe filling must sit well inside the border and the wetted edges must be pressed firmly, or the cream boils out and the pastry sits in a puddle of sugar. Chill the assembled turnovers for 20 minutes before baking so the butter layers are firm going into the oven.
- "Brisk oven"Roughly 425°F; the term in period books covers about 400-450°F. Puff paste wants that heat so its water turns to steam quickly and lifts the layers, rather than the butter simply running out at a slack heat. Fifteen minutes suits pieces this small.
- Half pound puff pasteAbout 8 oz; roughly a sheet of commercial all-butter frozen puff pastry, though sheet weights vary. "As thin as possible" is not specified further in the text: thin enough to fold and seal, thick enough to hold the cream. Half a pound will yield more than the six squares called for, so expect trimmings.
- Crème pâtissièrePastry cream: milk, sugar, egg yolks, flour or cornstarch, cooked to a boil and cooled. It must be thoroughly cold and stiff before it goes on the pastry. Six tablespoons -- a generous 1/3 cup -- covers six turnovers at a tablespoon each.
- The sugar sideDipping the damp face in powdered sugar and baking it upward gives a glazed, lightly caramelised top. Watch the last few minutes — sugar at 425°F goes from amber to bitter quickly.
- The wetted baking sheetA period practice; the usual explanation is that water on an ungreased sheet turns to steam and helps the base lift while keeping the pastry from sliding. A heavy sheet lined with parchment is the modern substitute, though it works differently.
- Yield and servingSix pastries, best within a few hours of baking. The "folded napkin" is a common form of service in books of this period, generally for hot and crisp items.
Feuilleté simply means "leafed" or "layered", from feuille, a leaf — the name describes what puff paste does in the oven rather than any particular filling. Filled squares of this kind belong to the everyday repertoire of the French pâtisserie and the hotel pastry room, where a batch of pastry cream and a block of puff paste were both standing preparations and could be turned into a dozen different small cakes at short notice. Its presence in an international collection reflects the period's assumption that professional French technique was the baseline against which other cooking was measured.