When I was a young man, I liked to devote my free Sunday mornings to a busman's holiday. After a strenuous week of supervising the huge kitchens at the old Ritz-Carlton, I enjoyed nothing more than a baking spree in my suburban kitchen, with my little daughter Suzette as a wide-eyed and appreciative audience and ultimate consumer!
But as time passed and my responsibilities grew heavier, our Sunday morning revels became less and less frequent, and filially ceased. I confess that when this very busy and important chef des cuisines stopped at the hotel's pastry kitchen to give the orders for the day, he was sorely tempted to linger there and-I almost said “play”!
Pastry making was one of my early culinary loves, but it has been many years since I actually worked in a pastry kitchen. When it came time, in this series of lessons in classic cuisine, to teach you the basic skills of pastry making, I was beset by doubt. Did I remember all the lessons I had learned? Would I perhaps forger some small but vital detail? Mon Dieu, I thought, perhaps I myself can no longer turn out all the different pâtes!
I was truly disturbed about this problem, until some kind American friends offered me their kitchen as a workshop. It was a typical American kitchen, they assured me, not French, like my own. The equipment in their kitchen was the sort available to most Americans. It would be the best possible way to test myself. So I packed plans for a week of baking in my mind far more carefully than I packed my suitcase, and set out on the grand experiment.
Et Voilâ! Once again, I was a pastry chef, with my hostess for an apprentie. And to my delight, the miracle happened. Suddenly, twenty years seemed to drop away and everything I ever knew about baking came back to me. The look and the feel of the pales were as familiar as if I had left my pastry board only yesterday. And I knew that I could pass on to you, my pupils, all the tricks-down to the seemingly least important ones that mean success or failure in classic pastry making. Some of these tricks applied to the pâtes that I discussed in the previous articles of this pastry series; more of them apply specifically to the butter cakes and spongecakes with which this chapter deals.
I was delighted to find in my friend's kitchen heavy baking pans of the kind I prefer; cakes bake more evenly and rise belter in a heavy pan. I found also the essential measuring cups and spoons, a good flour sifter, a wooden mixing spoon, a flexible spatula, and pastry bags equipped with several kinds of tubes. I like to use a pastry brush for oiling the pans and for glazing the tops of some pastries, and, for cooling the cakes, I like wire racks which allow the air to circulate evenly around them. My friend had an efficient electric beater, a great work saver, but I suggested that an extra set of beater blades would save time when egg whites and yolks must be beaten separately.
Chemical leavenings like baking powder do not belong to the classic cuisine of France. Lightness is achieved with eggs, and French cakes have a slightly different texture from that of the usual American layer cake. Of course, eggs cost more than baking powder; but on the other hand, these cakes require less butter, and the fillings and icings may be omitted altogether (dieters, please note!) without sacrificing the deliciousness of the cake.
Gâteaux raised with eggs are basically simple mixtures. The main ingredients arc eggs, sugar, and flour, or eggs, sugar, flour, and butter. Vanilla or lemon may be used as a flavoring, and sometimes almond powder is an additional ingredient.
My notebooks list many gateaux, all different, and yet not very different. One recipe varies the proportions, another combines the ingredients in a different manner, still another uses a different pan and different icing and filling. But the basic pâtes-the French for batters or doughs-are essentially unaltered.
The first and most important step in making these egg-raised pâtes is the initial beating of the sugar and eggs, In some recipes the whole eggs are beaten with the sugar, in others only the yolks are beaten with the sugar, and the whites are beaten separately and folded in at the last. There is one precaution you should observe: never use very cold eggs. Take the eggs out of the refrigerator an hour before you begin to mix the cake. Beat the mixture in a warm bowl. Most French chefs wrap the mixing bowl in a large towel wet with very hot water. Or you may simply rinse the bowl with hot water beforehand and set it in a second bowl of hot water. Then beat the eggs and sugar until the mixture is lukewarm, and very light and fluffy. When only the yolks are used, the mixture should flow from the beater in ribbons, and be almost white. It can then be allowed to cool, but the beating goes on. This procedure takes from twenty to thirty minutes with a hand whip, and about five or six minutes with an electric beater.
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