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Petites Surprises
Place in a basin three ounces peeled and finely chopped almonds, three ounces sugar, three ounces flour, two ounces melted butter, two whole eggs, the yolk of another and the rind of quarter of a lemon finely chopped up. Mix all well with the spatula for five minutes. Lightly butter six individual tartlet moulds, then pour in some of the preparation up to half their capacity. Press through a sieve two preserved apricots and evenly divide over the six moulds, then fill up with the balance of the preparation. Arrange them on a tin, set in a moderate oven for twenty minutes, remove, let cool off, unmould on a dish with a folded napkin, sprinkle a little powdered sugar over and serve.
A small almond batter with a hidden spoonful of apricot in the middle — the "surprise" of the name. It is closer to a frangipane cake than a tart, and the only real technical trap is filling the moulds.
- Weights, convertedThree ounces of almonds is about 3/4 cup once chopped; 3 oz sugar is a scant 1/2 cup; 3 oz flour is about 2/3 cup. Two ounces of melted butter is 4 tablespoons. The recipe is built on equal weights, so a scale is easier than cups.
- Moderate ovenUsually taken today as around 350F, though the book gives no temperatures. Twenty minutes is right for tartlet-sized moulds; the cakes are done when the centres spring back and the edges pull from the tin.
- Tartlet mouldsSmall individual moulds, plain or fluted, of roughly 2.5 to 3 inches. A standard muffin tin works, though the sides will be straight rather than sloped. Butter thoroughly — there is no lining paper and they are turned out whole.
- Fill only halfwayThe instruction to fill each mould to half capacity before adding apricot is the hinge. Overfill and the batter rises over the fruit and out of the mould, and the surprise ends up on the baking sheet.
- Preserved apricotsApricots in syrup, drained; the text is not clear whether two whole fruits or two halves are meant, so the purée may amount to anywhere from about two to four tablespoons, divided over six moulds. Good apricot jam, loosened slightly, does the same job.
- Powdered sugarIn 1906 this generally meant finely ground sugar rather than the modern cornstarch-blended confectioners' sugar. Either dusts well; confectioners' sugar is what most kitchens have.
- Unmould coolThe recipe says to let them cool before turning out, and it means it — warm almond batter with a moist fruit centre tears easily. The folded napkin on the serving dish is period presentation, and also keeps the cakes from sliding.
- YieldSix small cakes, one per person as a dessert with coffee.
The name is simply French pâtisserie shorthand: petites surprises, little surprises, the surprise being the pocket of apricot buried in the almond batter and invisible until the first bite. The batter itself is a plain frangipane — equal weights of almonds, sugar and flour bound with egg and butter, a formula that runs through nineteenth-century French pastry work in dozens of guises. Alexander Filippini, long of Delmonico's in New York, filled The International Cook Book (1906) with exactly this sort of hotel-kitchen item: a dessert that can be assembled from stock ingredients, baked in quantity in individual moulds, and plated on a folded napkin in the service style of the period. The reliance on preserved rather than fresh apricots is also telling — a professional larder kept fruit in syrup year-round, and the recipe assumes it.