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Macaroons
Boil four ounces sweet almonds in water for three minutes; thoroughly drain and peel them nicely. Place them into a sieve and lay them at the door of a slow oven to dry for ten minutes. Drop them into a mortar, with one-half pound powdered sugar, the whites of three eggs and two drops vanilla essence. Pound all well till of a smooth paste. Transfer into a vessel and beat with the wooden spoon until of a good consistency.
Arrange a half-inch tube at the bottom of a small pastry bag. Drop the paste into the bag. Have a pastry baking pan and lay it in a piece of brown paper the full size of the bottom of the pan. Then gently press the preparation down into the papered pan, one inch in diameter, taking care that each is entirely separated from the others. Take a damp towel and drop it gently on the macaroons, so as to shape them perfectly. Place the pan in a rather slow oven and bake for twenty minutes, so they will obtain a good golden colour. Remove from the oven and let them cool. To remove them easily from the paper, wet part of a table, lay the paper over this for two minutes, detach them, dress on a dish and serve. Place in jar or tin those not needed, as they will keep in good condition for several days.
An almond macaroon of the older French type: nothing but almonds, sugar, egg white and a drop of vanilla, worked to a paste rather than folded into a meringue. The instructions are sound; only the equipment and oven language need translating.
- Oven temperatureA "rather slow oven" is usually taken to mean somewhere around 300-325F. Much hotter and the sugar is likely to colour before the centres set; the twenty minutes given suits one-inch mounds at the lower end of that range.
- Drying the almondsAfter blanching and peeling, the almonds must be genuinely dry before pounding, or the paste will be slack. Ten minutes in a barely warm oven, or a low 200F oven with the door ajar, does it. Do not let them take on colour.
- Mortar or food processorA food processor replaces the mortar, but pulse the almonds with a little of the sugar first so they grind rather than turn to butter. Add the remaining sugar, then the whites, and run only until smooth.
- Egg whites are not whippedThe whites go in raw and unbeaten, as a binder. Three whites is roughly 3 fl oz; if the paste is stiff enough to hold a shape but soft enough to pipe, stop there. Egg sizes were less standardised then, so hold back part of the third white and add it only if needed.
- Brown paperSubstitute parchment. Brown paper was what was to hand; parchment releases better and skips the last step entirely.
- The damp towelThis is the detail worth keeping. Laying a damp cloth briefly over the piped mounds wets the surface just enough to smooth the piping ridges before baking.
- Wetting the tableAn unnecessary trick if you use parchment. It works by soaking the paper from beneath so the sugar releases; on parchment, simply cool the sheet fully and lift them off.
- Yield and keepingAbout two to two and a half dozen macaroons an inch across. The recipe says those not needed will keep in good condition in a jar or tin for several days.
Macaroon comes through French from the Italian maccherone; the further derivation, often given as from a verb meaning to crush or beat down and so describing the pounding of almonds and sugar in a mortar, is one proposed etymology among several. Almond-and-egg-white confections of this kind are, by tradition, associated with Italian convent and monastic kitchens, and are recorded in France from the sixteenth century onward, long before the sandwiched, coloured Parisian macaron of the twentieth. That this version appears in The International Cook Book, compiled by a Delmonico's man, explains its tone: brown paper, a piping tube, a damp cloth for finishing. A straight almond formula like this one reads as the older and more formal tradition, beside the coconut macaroon.