Savarin
5 tablespoonfuls lukewarm water 2 cupfuls flour 1/2 teaspoonful salt 3 eggs 2 tablespoonfuls chopped almonds 1 cupful whipped cream
What survives here is only the ingredient column: the method, the sugar, the fat and — critically — the yeast are missing. Read this as a shopping list for a yeast-raised savarin rather than a set of directions, and expect to work from a complete modern recipe alongside it.
- The list is incompleteA savarin is a yeast batter, and no leavening appears here at all. Neither does sugar, nor any fat, which a book published to promote a shortening might be expected to specify; the lukewarm water suggests yeast belonged in the original text.
- Lukewarm waterFive tablespoons is likely the liquid for proofing yeast rather than the whole batter — around 100–110F, warm to the finger and no hotter, since yeast is damaged above roughly 120F and killed at around 130–140F.
- FlourTwo cupfuls is about 9 oz of modern all-purpose flour. Savarin batter is beaten, not kneaded: it should be soft enough to fall from the spoon in ribbons, closer to a thick cake batter than a dough.
- Whipped creamThe list reads "whipped cream," so whether the cupful is measured before or after whipping is not clear from the text. Either way it belongs in the ring's centre, not in the batter.
- The soaking syrupA savarin is normally finished with one, and none is listed. The baked cake is soaked, usually while still warm, with hot sugar syrup, commonly flavoured with rum or kirsch; a thoroughly cooled cake absorbs it less readily.
- The panA savarin is baked in a plain ring mould, greased and filled no more than halfway to leave room for the rise. A modern angel-food or tube pan with a removable base is the nearest equivalent, though the sharp-cornered tube will change the shape.
- AlmondsTwo tablespoons of chopped almonds is a garnish, scattered over the glazed ring or pressed into the buttered mould before the batter goes in.
- YieldA two-cup flour batter would suit a ring of roughly 8 inches, serving perhaps six to eight in thin wedges — it is rich once soaked.
The savarin is a nineteenth-century French pastry, generally traced to the Parisian firm of Julien and named for Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, author of La Physiologie du goût; it is a variation on the older baba, baked in a ring rather than a tall mould and soaked in syrup after baking. Its appearance in The Story of Crisco (1913) is characteristic of that book's ambitions: Procter & Gamble were selling a new hydrogenated vegetable shortening as an all-purpose replacement for butter and lard, and the surest way to make the case was to show it performing in the most Continental, most butter-identified corners of the pastry cook's repertoire. The recipe collection was compiled by Marion Harris Neil, a professional cookery writer engaged for the purpose, which explains why a promotional pamphlet reaches for savarins and timbales alongside biscuits and fried chicken.