The spirit of cookery

Darioles belong to the patisserie d’entremets ; they are little shallow cups of puff paste filled with a compound cream or custard ; they are therefore thus far identical with fanchonettes, but do not rise to the complication of the latter, there being no meringue paste garnish, and no top of ornamentation. There was also a difference formerly de rigueur, now neglected ; the creams of the fanchonettes were white, those of the darioles yellow. On the whole, we may term darioles the simple form or beginning of fanchonettes, and these latter compound darioles, to establish a comparative definition of both. Both should retain their ancient names. There are some variations of darioles worthy of notice, such as with orange flavour, called a la Duchesse, and with coffee flavour, but they are unimportant. When, however, the custard of darioles receives an addition of cheese of any kind, fresh or ripe, the product assumes a new special name, that of Talmouse. No ratafias are added to such, while they are added to cheese cakes ; on the other hand. HISTORICAL SMALL CAKES AH talmouses receive au addition of flour in their custard paste, which is not made to cheese cake. Darioles with apricot jam and nuts, such as almonds, pistachios, or filberts, are termed Placomses by a few moderns, though the name does not occur either in La Chapelle, or ‘ Dons de Comus,’ or Careme. The apricots and nuts being above the custard, a placomse is a transition from dariole to fanchonette. The culinary levellers of small modern manuals have absurdly called the placome ‘apricot nougat,’ their intended product being a common puff paste cake with jam spread over it, thus proving that they know neither the nature of a placousc nor the character of nougat. Pastry Custard, or Compound Pastry Cream for garnishing Tarts and Tartlets, is a smooth batter of equal parts of flour and sugar, with eggs, milk, or cream and butter ; its lowest form is the substitute with which ‘ art bakers ’ produce their counterfeit darioles. Florentines are darioles which combine certain features of cheese cakes and fanchonettes, without being entirely one or the other. They contain curds, butter, yolks, flour, bitter almonds, zest of lemon, and the composition is placed on thin shells of puff' paste ; the rest is much like the finishing of fanchonettes ; a florentine might therefore be defined as a fanchonette into the custard of which caseine has been introduced. Love Wells, or Gâteaux de Puits d'Amour, are laborious little jam tarts, with a rather ambitious title, and an example of what the French ladies used to call chatteries, i.e., dainties or delicacies for company (Balzac). They were much in use in the last century. Pu,f Paste is made to assume various forms for which it is inappropriate. Such are the walnuts of culinary malaprops ; or the sandwiches absurdly called ‘ bread-and-butter pastry,’ which are, in fact, simple slices of puff' paste baked and then agglutinated by jam ; puff paste wreaths or rings ; plain jam tartlets, termed Polish cakes for reasons not stated (these tartlets may be beautifully made ; the recipes for them are almost repetitions of those for the puits d’amour) ; apple tartlets, covered with a lattice-work of thin puff paste (misnamed by careless authors a mosaic of paste, a special board for producing such lattice- work being also misnamed a mosaic board).