FoodNet

The spirit of cookery

1895

Page 261 · 4 recipe records on this page

Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Cakes xoith prevalence of almonds carry almonds both in their substance and on the top ; they are varied by additions of fruit and flavours. Their most specific representatives are Swedish macroons, but the rest are obscure undistinguished compositions. Macroons are meringue paste with pounded almonds added. They are made with ratafia flavour, i.c., a few bitter almonds are mixed with the sweet ; maci’oons made of bitter almonds mainly are called ratafias, and are always of small size. Brcntcn, or Frankfort Brenten, are made of a paste of powdered almonds and sugar, which is roasted, and then receives an addition of a little flour, milk, cinnamon, and rose-waterBrenten (Frankfort Brenten). The name of Brenten may possibly be derived from the fact of the paste being roasted, i.c., burnt (Germ. fjebrannt). Here may be placed Crackling , or Knack Cakes, which con- tain butter and eggs, and have the almonds on the surface. Fanchonettes are little round cakes consisting of a basis of * ‘ ratia«ier Royal Pariaitin,’ i. 266-272. 414 THE SPIRIT OF COOKERY jlakc dough, or pulf paste, in the shape of a flat little cup, like a dariolc, filled with a semi-liquid or moist creatn-like •prei^aralion, which in the older preparation was while, intended to represent, and mainly consisting of, cream, but in the later recipes also contained yolks, and thus became a custard. This second layer is next to be masked over with meringue paste, i.c., a mixture of white of egg, froth, and sugar, and this is to be ornamented on the top with bright- coloured jellies and jams. Fanchonettes are entremets, and were much fancied towards the latter half of the eighteenth century ; hence they have been termed some of the friandises du dernier sieclc. How little these delicate and elegant cakes are understood nowadays is evident from this fact alone, that some of the best books on pastry, in describing fanchonettes, omit entirely the basis of puff pasteFanchonettes, without which such a cake is as impossible as a paid without a case. Fanchonettes are varied, flavoured with vanille, or prepared with compound milk of almonds, or Mocha coffee, or choco- late ; some add currants, others ‘pistachios or filberts ; all these modificatious are immaterial, and hardly harmonize with the plan of the cakelet. Of Cheese Cakes the earliest description occurs in the Latin work already often alluded to, entitled ‘ De Ke Eustica,’ and ascribed to Cato the Elder, called of Utica. He simply terms it placenta, which is the Latin for cake in general, and not for any particular cake. Placenta is derived from the Greek which also means cake, and is itself a contraction of placocis, meaning flat, plane, even, broad, so that the Greek name of cake seems to embody the idea of its accidental shape, and not to be a symbol of its intrinsic nature. Cheese in connection with these cakes does not mean ripe cheese in the ordinary sense, but fresh pressed curds, or caseine. Cheese cakes, like fan- chonettes, have a basis of flake dough or puff paste, shaped like a httle flat saucer, and filled with a sweet custard con- FANCHONE'JTES, MIRLITONS, DARIOLES 4>5 Cheese Cakes