by Julia Child
2) Baking—oven has been preheated to 450 degrees
Bake in upper-middle level of preheated oven for 7 to 8 minutes, until sugar coating has caramelized lightly; if some cookies are done before others, remove them to rack because they burn easily. Cookies crisp as they cool.
(*) Couques will stay crisp for several days in dry weather when stored airtight; otherwise keep them in a warming oven or freeze them.
PALMIERS
[Palm-leaf Caramelized Sugar Cookies Made from Puff Pastry Dough]
This most popular of all puff-pastry cookies is often a disappointment when store-bought, even in France, but always delicious when you make it yourself from your own homemade buttery puff pastry. Thus if you have not been impressed with them before, try making your own; you will find them handsome to look at, wonderfully crisp, and you may make them very large as well as rather small. Size depends on the thickness of the pastry and the width of the rectangle you roll it into. You will work out your own system if you become an addicted pâtissier of palmiers, with your own palm-leaf patterns and special tours de main; we suggest only the basic techniques here. Again, we shall not give proportions, but a piece of pastry dough 5½ by 2 by 1½ inches will produce 2 dozen 3-inch palmiers.
1) Forming the cookies
Chilled leftover French puff pastry, pâte feuilletée
Sugar (ordinary granulated sugar)
A flexible-blade spatula
A clean dry baking sheet (you will probably need 2 sheets at least)
A rack or racks
Spread a layer of sugar ⅛ inch thick on your rolling surface. Sprinkling dough with more sugar as you roll, extend it into a rectangle about 3⁄16 inch thick. Fold bottom up to middle, and top down to cover it, as though folding a business letter. (Illustrations are in Puff Pastry.)
Turn pastry so top flap of dough is to your right, roll again in sugar to make a rectangle ⅜ inch thick, and fold again in three. (If pastry has softened and become difficult to handle, or if it has stiffened and become balky, refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour, then continue.) Roll the dough out 8 inches long (for 3-inch palmiers), then give it a quarter turn so the 8-inch length is facing you. Extend it out in front of you now with your rolling pin, keeping the dough 8 inches wide, and rolling it to whatever length it will go to make a square or rectangle ¼ inch thick. Trim off rough edges.
Fold sides so they almost touch at the center, as shown. Sprinkle top of dough with sugar and encrust it into the pastry with your rolling pin, at the same time pressing the top and bottom layers of dough together with pin.
Fold pastry in two, as though closing a book. Press with your rolling pin, to hold the 4 layers more closely together.
With a sharp knife, cut dough into crosswise pieces ⅜ inch thick.
Depending on what effect you wish, either bend the 2 ends up at right angles; or roll them halfway up the outside; or roll them up inside, so that they form two connecting swirls. Place on pastry sheet, each palmier 3 inches from neighbor in every direction—they will spread out to more than double in the oven.
Cover and chill 30 minutes at least; dough must relax or the palmier designs will lose their shape during baking. Preheat oven to 450 degrees, and set rack in upper-middle level in time for next step.
2) Baking—oven has been preheated to 450 degrees
(Bake one sheet at a time.) Set in upper-middle level of preheated oven and bake for about 6 minutes, until when you lift a cookie with your spatula, the bottom has begun to caramelize. Remove from oven, close oven door, and rapidly turn the cookies over. Sprinkle tops of each with a dusting of sugar, and return to oven for 3 to 4 minutes more, or until sugar topping has caramelized nicely—but keep an eye on them, because they burn quickly. Remove one by one to a rack, where the palmiers will crisp as they cool.
NOTE: The baking will take a little experimenting on your part, and timing will differ if cookies are thinner one time, thicker another. Your object is to have the pastry cook through, making a crisp, attractively shaped cookie with a caramel sheen.
(*) Palmiers will stay crisp for several days in dry weather when stored airtight; otherwise keep them in a warming oven or freeze them.
EIGHT FRENCH CAKES
PAIN D’ÉPICES
[Spice Cake—Spice Bread—Honey Bread]
Pain d’épices is the French equivalent of gingerbread, but is made with honey, rye flour, and mixed spices rather than from molasses, white flour, and ginger. Every country in the Old World seems to have a honey bread, and each region in France has its own special formula. Dijon, for instance, cures the flour and honey mixture for several months in wooden tubs before the final blending and baking. Montbard stores the baked breads for a month before serving, and Rheims mixes raw bread dough into the honey and rye. Some recipes call for glacéed fruits, some for brown sugar, eggs, white flour, or ground nuts. Potash was the original leavening agent, and bakers often add carbonate of ammonia for a lighter loaf; householders use bicarbonate of soda. Here is a delicious home recipe that is easy to make by hand, and even easier in a heavy-duty mixer with flat beater. Serve pain d’épices with butter for breakfast or tea.
A NOTE ON THE RYE FLOUR
The rye flour called for here is ordinary supermarket rye flour for general bread making. If you happen to have the so-called rye meal, which is heavier and coarser, use half rye meal and half regular all-purpose white flour; otherwise your pain d’épices will not rise properly.
For about 5 cups of dough, to bake in one 8-cup bread pan or two 4-cup pans
1) The batter
1¼ cups (1 lb.) honey
1 cup sugar
¾ cup boiling water
A 3- to 4-quart mixing bowl, or the bowl of a heavy-duty electric mixer
¼ tsp salt
1 Tb bicarbonate of soda
3½ to 4 cups (about 1 lb.) rye flour measured by scooping dry-measure cups into flour and sweeping off excess (see note on rye flour preceding Step 1)
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Either with a large wooden spoon or in a heavy-duty mixer with flat beater, blend the honey, sugar, and boiling water until sugar has dissolved. Stir in the salt, soda, and 3 cups of the flour. Beat in as much of the fourth cup of flour as will go in, to make a heavy, sticky dough but one you can still manipulate. Beat thoroughly and vigorously (4 to 5 minutes of beating, if you are using a mixer, will improve texture).
3 ounces (about ⅔ cup) ground blanched almonds (pulverize them in an electric blender)
1 tsp almond extract
¼ cup dark rum
4 tsp ground anise seed (pulverize in an electric blender)
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground mace
1 cup (8 ounces) glacéed fruit rinsed in boiling water, drained, and cut into ⅛-inch pieces (orange peel, lemon peel, and citron; or “fruit cake” mix)
Then add the rest of the ingredients listed. (If you are using a mixer, let the machine run at slow speed while the additions go in.)
2) Baking and storing—baking time 1 to 1¼ hours
An 8-cup bread pan or two 4- to 5-cup pans, heavily buttered and bottom lined with buttered waxed paper
Turn the mixture into the pan or pans. Dip your fingers in cold water, and smooth top of batter. Pans should be ½ to ⅔ filled. Bake in middle level of preheated 325-degree oven. Batter will rise to fill pan and top will probably crack slightly; it is best not to open oven door for 45 minutes or to touch anything, for fear of releasing the soda-engendered gases that are pushing the batter up. Four- to 5-cup pans will take 50 to 60 minutes; the 8-cup pan, about 1¼ hours. The spice bread is done when a skewer plunged to bottom of pan comes out clean, and when bread begins to show faint lines of shrinkage from edges of pan.
Let cool in pan for 10 to 15 minutes, then unmold on a rack. Immediately peel paper off bottom and gently turn the bread puffed-side up. When cold, in about 2 hours, wrap airtight in plastic. Pain d’épices improves in flavor
when aged, so do not serve it for at least a day; a wait of several days is actually preferable. It will keep for several weeks under refrigeration, or may be frozen for several months.
LE QUATRE QUARTS
[Pound Cake—Yellow Butter Cake]
The French name for this cake, Le Quatre Quarts, or “Four Quarters,” comes from its original proportions, which are un quart de livre, a quarter pound each, of its four ingredients—eggs, sugar, flour, and butter. The English like the formula so much that they use a pound of everything—hence, of course, pound cake. Of the several methods for making pound cake, we find by far the best one results from beating the eggs and sugar in an electric mixer until they double in volume and have enough body so that they keep that volume when the flour is rapidly blended in, followed by the softly creamed butter; the batter should look like a rich mayonnaise as you turn it into the pan. Besides beating the eggs, which presents no problem when you do it electrically, your other important object is to cream the butter so that it is soft enough to mix easily and rapidly into the batter without deflating it, yet has enough body so that it remains in suspension throughout the mixture rather than sinking to the bottom of the pan like melted butter.
For a 4-cup pan, such as the standard, round, 8 by 1½-inch American pan
1) Preliminaries
A 4-cup cake pan, buttered and floured
6 ounces (1½ sticks) butter
A small saucepan or bowl
A wire whip
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and set rack in middle level. Prepare the cake pan. Either beat room-temperature butter into a smooth cream, or cut chilled butter into ½-inch slices and beat over low heat until it begins to soften and continue beating until it is a mayonnaise-like cream. If it softens too much, beat over a bowl filled with ice and water. Butter must be like a heavy mayonnaise. Set aside.
2) The cake batter
3 “large” eggs (⅔ cup)
1 cup sugar
The grated rind of 1 lemon or orange
An electric mixer and large (3-quart) bowl
Blend the eggs and sugar with the lemon or orange peel for a minute at low speed to mix, then increase speed to high and beat for 4 to 5 minutes or more, until mixture is pale, fluffy, doubled in volume, and looks like whipped cream. If you are using a mixer on a stand, measure the flour while the eggs are beating.
1¼ cups (6 ounces) cake flour (measure by scooping dry-measure cup into flour and sweeping off excess with a knife)
A sieve or sifter set on waxed paper
Measure out the flour and sieve or sift onto the paper. Beat the eggs and sugar again for a moment if they have lost their body or volume. Turn speed to low and gradually sprinkle in the flour as you mix. Do this rapidly, and do not try for a perfect blending at this point; the operation should not take more than 15 to 20 seconds (for a mixer on a stand—longer for a hand-held model.)
The creamy mayonnaise-like butter
2 rubber spatulas
Still at low speed, and using 1 spatula to remove the butter from its bowl, and a second to dislodge it from the first, rapidly incorporate the butter into the egg mixture, taking no more than 15 to 20 seconds (with a mixer on a stand), and, again, not trying for a perfect blend.
Remove bowl from stand, if you have that kind of mixer, and rapidly cut down through batter and out to side with rubber spatula, rotating bowl and repeating the movement 2 or 3 times to complete the blending. Turn batter into prepared pan; run it up to rim all around with spatula, and bang pan lightly on table to deflate any bubbles.
3) Baking—about 40 minutes at 350 degrees
Immediately set pan in middle level of preheated oven and bake for about 40 minutes, until a skewer or toothpick plunged down into top center of cake comes out clean. Cake will have risen slightly over top of pan, top will have browned nicely, and cake will feel lightly springy when pressed. Cool 10 minutes in pan, then unmold onto a rack; if you wish to serve it plain, immediately reverse it onto another rack so its puffed side will be uppermost.
4) Serving
The Quatre Quarts may be served as is, sprinkled with powdered sugar. Or fill and ice it with anything you wish. Here is a quick and simple filling.
Crème au Citron or Crème à l’Orange
[Lemon- or Orange-cream Filling]
For about 1 cup, enough for an 8- to 9-inch cake
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 Tb lemon juice or concentrated frozen orange juice
The grated rind of one lemon or orange
1 Tb hot water
1 egg
2 Tb butter
1 Tb cornstarch
A small saucepan and a wire whip
Beat all ingredients together over moderately high heat until mixture thickens and comes to the boil. Continue beating over low heat for 2 minutes until starch cooks and cream looks translucent.
3 to 6 Tb unsalted butter
Pinch of salt
Remove from heat and beat in butter, as much as you wish up to 6 tablespoons. Salt very lightly, to taste. Filling will thicken as it cools. May be refrigerated for several days, or frozen for several months.
Split cake in half, and if you wish, sprinkle the inside of each half with drops of rum or of orange liqueur. Spread filling on bottom half and re-form the cake. You may paint the cake with warm apricot glaze and brush chopped nuts around the circumference, or simply sprinkle the top with confectioner’s sugar.
LE CAKE
[Rich Yellow Loaf Cake with Rum, Raisins, and Cherries]
A French cake is always baked in a moule à cake—meaning a loaf pan—and a French cake always has fruits in it. It is not at all a fruit cake in the American sense of solid fruit held together with batter; it is, rather, a slightly modified pound-cake formula flavored with rum and raisins, and baked with a layer of glacéed cherries in the center. Serve it with tea or with fruit desserts; it keeps well for several days under refrigeration, or it may be frozen.
A NOTE ON FRUITS FALLING TO BOTTOM OF CAKES DURING BAKING
We struggled for years trying to devise some system to prevent fruits from sinking to the bottom of the cake during baking. Finally we realized that we were using cake flour and our batter was too light; the French recipe calls for farine, regular French household flour. As soon as we switched to a combination of 4 parts all-purpose flour and 1 part cake flour, our troubles were over. To make doubly sure, we also suggest dusting the fruits with a combination of flour and baking powder.
For a 6-cup loaf pan, approximately 10 inches long and 3½ inches deep
1) Preliminaries
A 6-cup loaf pan, bottom lined with waxed paper, interior of pan buttered and floured
6 ounces (1½ sticks) butter in a small saucepan or bowl
A wire whip
⅔ cup (4 ounces, or about 30) glacéed cherries on a plate
1 cup all-purpose flour and ¼ cup cake flour in a bowl (measure by scooping dry-measure cups into flour and sweeping off excess with a knife)
A rubber spatula
1 tsp double-action baking powder
⅔ cup (4 ounces) currants (small, black, seedless raisins) on a plate
A square of waxed paper
A fine-meshed sieve
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and set rack in middle level. Prepare the cake pan. Cream the butter (over heat if necessary, then over cold water) to a smooth mayonnaise-like consistency. Wash cherries in very hot water to remove preservatives, dry on paper towels, and cut each in half. Measure out the 2 flours, and blend together in bowl with spatula. Mix the baking powder and a tablespoon of the flour on waxed paper, then sprinkle over the raisins, tossing and stirring to coat them. Because raisins and cherries are to remain separate, turn raisins into sieve placed over cherries and shake off the baking powder and flour onto cherries. Return raisins to their plate, coat cherries with mixture, and sieve cherries over the bowl of flour; return cherries to their plate.
2) The cake batter
2 “large”
eggs
2 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
¼ cup dark Jamaican rum
An electric mixer, and large bowl on stand, or 3- to 4-quart mixing bowl
Beat the eggs, yolks, sugar, and rum at moderate speed to blend, then increase to high speed and beat 5 to 6 minutes or more, until mixture is thick, pale yellow, creamy, and the consistency of lightly whipped cream. You must beat long enough for it to thicken this way, or the batter will be too light to support the fruit.
The bowl of mixed flours
The waxed paper
Turn flour out onto waxed paper. At slow mixing speed, gradually sprinkle the flour into the egg mixture, taking 15 to 20 seconds but not trying for a perfect blend at this point; eggs must not be deflated by over-mixing.