The Recipe
Posted by Marie Bernadette on March 18, 1998 at 17:07:55:
In response to chocolate puff recipe, written by Sarah P on March 18, 1998 at 06:16:35
I've looked and can't find the good Captain's posting. Please, Marie Bernadette, could you give me the recipe, or point me to the message. They sound delicious.
Sarah
Sarah,
I looked three times and couldn't find it either. Then I went to the archives and couldn't find it there. So here it is as our Captain posted it:
Chocolate Puffs
(John Farley, The London Art of Cookery; London: John Barker, 9th edition, 1800, p. 227)
ORIGINAL RECIPE
"Having beat and sifted half a pound of double-refined sugar, scrape into it an ounce of chocolate very fine and mix them together. Beat the white of an egg to a very high froth, and strew in your sugar and chocolate. Keep beating it until it be stiff as a paste. Then sugar your paper, drop them on the size of a sixpence, and bake them in a slow oven."
MODERN EQUIVALENT
These puffs are essentially chocolate merangues. This is a very early us of chocolate in confectionary, which was expensive and still a bit exotic to people of the late 18th century. The oven needs to be just barely warm tho dry the merangues, rather than bake them.
250ml (1 cup) fruit sugar [a good modern equivalent to double refined sugar]
1 medium egg white
50ml (1/4 cup) unsweetened chocolate, grated very fine
Blend: sugar and chocolate
Whisk: egg white to a stiff froth
Whisk in: sugar and chocolate mixture a bit at a time to create a glossy but stiff merengue
Line: baking sheets with baker's parchment and strew lightly with fruit sugar
Pipe: small rosettes through a decorating tube or drop by small spoonfuls onto baking sheets [a sixpence was about the size of a dime]
Dry: in a very cool oven (75'C/150'F), for 30-40 minutes, until dry to touch or overnight in a gas oven with a pilot light
Yield: about four dozen puffs
I have to admit, I 'fudged' it a little and used cocoa and powdered sugar because I had no fruit sugar on hand, although I have seen it at the health food store and will try it with that next time. Also, I got greedy and doubled the recipe (my everything-to-excess American side coming through), and drop them on there by the teaspoonful so mine were the size of, I don't know, guineas probably, and took longer to dry, but they were still really good.
--Honoured, &c.
Marie Bernadette
- Thanks a lot, Marie Bernadette! (nfm) Sarah P 09:06:07 3/24/98
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