French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [236]
LA TARTE AUX POMMES NORMANDE
OPEN APPLE TART
Cook 1 lb. of sweet apples as for pommes au beurre. Make a pâte sablée or crumbly pastry by rubbing 3 oz. of butter into 6 oz. of plain flour, a quarter-teaspoon of salt and 3 teaspoons of white sugar. Moisten with 2 to 4 tablespoons of ice-cold water. If it is still too dry, add a little more, but the less water you use the more crumbly and light your pastry will be.
Simply shape the pastry into a ball and immediately, without leaving it to rest or even rolling it out, spread it with your hands into a lightly buttered 8-inch flan tin. Brush the edges with thin cream or milk; arrange the apples, without the juice, in overlapping circles, keeping a nicely-shaped piece for the centre. Bake, with the tin on a baking sheet, in a preheated hot oven at Gas No. 6, 400 deg. F., for 30 to 35 minutes, turning the tin round once during the cooking. Take it from the oven, pour in the buttery juices, which have been reheated, give another sprinkling of sugar and return to the oven for barely a minute.
Although it is at its best hot, this pastry will not go sodden even when it is cold.
PAVÉ AUX MARRONS
CHESTNUT AND CHOCOLATE CAKE
An excellent and comparatively simple chestnut sweet which is half pudding, half cake.
Shell and skin 1 lb. of chestnuts as described on page 263. Cover them with half milk and half water and simmer them very gently until they are very soft, which will take about an hour. Drain off the liquid. Sieve the chestnuts. To the resulting purée add a syrup made from 3 oz. of white sugar and 2 or 3 tablespoons of water, then 2 oz. of softened butter. When this mixture is thoroughly amalgamated, turn it into a rectangular mould of pint or 1 pint capacity. (An ice-tray from the refrigerator is a good substitute if you have no small loaf tin.) This should first be very lightly brushed with oil. (Sweet almond oil, to be bought from chemists, is ideal). Leave until next day in the refrigerator or larder. To turn it out, run a knife round the edges and ease out the cake.
Cover it with the following mixture: break up 3 oz. of plain chocolate and melt it on a fireproof plate in the oven, with 4 or 5 lumps of sugar and 2 or 3 tablespoons of water. Stir it smooth; add 1 oz. of butter. Let it cool a little, then with a palette knife cover the whole cake with the chocolate, smoothing it with a knife dipped in water. Leave it to set before serving. Ample for four.
GATEAU MOKA
COFFEE CAKE
This is the simplest sort of old-fashioned plain cake, saved from dryness by a coffee-cream filling, and admirable to serve with creams and ices.
To make the cake, beat 3 oz. of vanilla sugar with 3 yolks of eggs until the mixture is very creamy. Add 3 oz. of flour and then fold in the stiffly-whipped whites of the eggs. Turn into a lightly buttered oblong cake tin (1 -pint capacity) and bake in a moderate oven, Gas No. 4, 355 to 560 deg. F., for 30 minutes. Turn the cake out upside down on to a cake rack a few minutes after taking it from the oven.
To make the cream filling, work 3 oz. of butter with the yolk of an egg; add 3 oz. of sieved icing sugar; when the cream is smooth stir in a dessertspoon of very strong black coffee (nowadays the most convenient method is to use soluble coffee powder mixed to a thin paste).
Slice the cake into three or four layers. Spread each liberally with the coffee cream and reshape the cake. Press lightly as you put each layer back, so that the slices will stick together. Leave for some hours before serving.
GATEAU AU CHOCOLAT
CHOCOLATE CAKE
This is a cake which can also be eaten as a pudding, and is neither expensive nor difficult to make.
lb. bitter chocolate, lb. caster sugar, 2 tablespoons of flour, 3 eggs, 3 oz. butter.
Melt the chocolate in the oven; mix it with the softened butter, flour, sugar and beaten egg yolks. Fold in the stiffly-beaten