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Petites Precieuses
Three ounces powdered sugar, one and a half ounces flour, one ounce peeled and finely chopped almonds, four egg yolks, the whites of the four eggs, the rind of quarter of a lemon, finely grated, and half teaspoon salt. Place all these ingredients except the egg whites in a bowl and sharply beat up with a whisk for five minutes, then beat up the whites to a stiff froth, add to the bowl and gently mix with a skimmer for one minute. Lightly butter six individual pudding moulds; fill them up with the preparation. Place the moulds in a pastry tin and set in the oven for fifteen minutes. Remove, let rest five minutes, unmould, then with a knife or, rather, a Parisian potato scoop make a hollow in the centre of each cake down to half the depth and three-quarters of an inch in diameter on top of the thinner side. Press six preserved half apricots through a sieve, then place in a bowl with the scooped-out pieces of cake; add one tablespoon sugar, one tablespoon sugar, one teaspoon maraschino and one teaspoon kirschwasser; mix for one minute. Then fill the empty spaces of the cakes with the apricot preparation, dress on a dish with a folded napkin and serve.
A small almond sponge baked in individual moulds, hollowed and filled with liqueur-spiked apricot. The method is sound; only the measurements and the missing oven temperature need attention.
- Weights to volumesThree ounces powdered sugar is roughly ¾ cup if confectioners' sugar is meant, but 'powdered sugar' in older books often meant fine granulated, which would be closer to a scant ½ cup; 1½ ounces flour is about ⅓ cup and 1 ounce chopped almonds a scant ¼ cup. Weighing is more reliable here, as the batter has no leavening beyond the whipped whites.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A batter of this type wants a moderate oven, around 350F, for the fifteen minutes specified; the recipe does not state the size of the moulds. The cakes are done when the tops spring back.
- The hinge: folding the whitesThe only lift comes from the beaten whites, and the yolk base has been whisked hard for five minutes and is stiff. Lighten it with a spoonful of white first, then fold the rest in briefly — the "one minute" in the original is a real limit, not a figure of speech.
- The saltHalf a teaspoon against three ounces of sugar reads high for a sponge this size and will be noticeable. A generous pinch is closer to modern taste; the original may reflect coarser, less dense salt.
- Duplicated line"One tablespoon sugar, one tablespoon sugar" is a printer's repetition. One tablespoon is enough for six sieved apricot halves already packed in syrup.
- EquipmentA "pastry tin" here is simply a baking sheet to carry the moulds; there is no water bath. A "Parisian potato scoop" is a melon baller, and a "skimmer" a wide perforated spoon — a flexible spatula folds better.
- The apricots and liqueursPreserved apricot halves means fruit put up in syrup; drained canned halves work. Maraschino is the clear cherry-stone liqueur, not cocktail-cherry syrup, and kirschwasser is dry cherry brandy — sweet substitutes will throw the filling out of balance.
- Yield and servingSix small cakes, one per person. They are served soon after unmoulding and filling, dressed on a dish with a folded napkin as the original directs; a paper doily is commonly used the same way.
The name means, roughly, "little precious things" — the sort of diminutive flourish French pastry chefs attached to small moulded cakes for a plated dessert course, alongside petits fours, petits soufflés and the rest. The construction is standard hotel-kitchen work of the period: a biscuit or génoise batter enriched with almonds, baked in individual pudding moulds, then hollowed and refilled so the crumb removed is worked back into the garnish and nothing is wasted. Maraschino and kirsch are both stone-fruit distillates that echo the almond in the cake, and here they are paired with apricot.