Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2 (213 page)

If you use half ground filberts and half ground blanched almonds rather than almonds alone for the meringues in the following recipe, call your cake
Le Progrès
rather than
Le Succès
.

For an 8-inch cake, serving 8 to 10

1)
Preliminaries

1 to 2 Tb soft butter

2 large baking sheets 14 by 16 inches (no-stick if possible)

¼ cup flour

A marker, such as an 8-inch round pot lid, a cake pan, a heart, or whatever shape you wish your cake to be

A rubber spatula

6 ounces (1½ cups loosely packed) ground blanched almonds (may be ground in an electric blender)

1 cup sugar (extra-fine granulated or “instant” recommended)

A double thickness of waxed paper about 10 by 12 inches

1 level Tb plus 1½ level tsp unsifted cornstarch

A fine-meshed sieve

A canvas pastry bag 12 to 14 inches long with round metal tube opening ⅜ inch in diameter

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Rub soft butter over top of baking sheets, covering surface completely. Roll flour all over buttered surface and knock off excess. Make three 8-inch rings or other shapes on baking sheets by drawing around marker with point of rubber spatula. Measure the almonds and sugar onto waxed paper, and work with fingers to remove any lumps. Sieve over this the cornstarch, and mix in with rubber spatula; set aside. Assemble the pastry bag. (Note that you will need
pralin
—
caramelized almonds
—for the butter cream in Step 5, and toasted almonds for the sides of the assembled cake, Step 6; toast the almonds for both after the meringues have baked, and the
pralin
takes but a few minutes.)

2)
The meringue-almond mixture—pâte à Succès

¾ cup egg whites (6 egg whites) at room temperature

A clean, dry bowl and clean, dry electric-mixer blades

⅛ tsp salt

¼ tsp cream of tartar

3 Tb sugar

1½ tsp vanilla extract

⅛ tsp almond extract

The almond-sugar-starch mixture from Step 1

The assembled pastry bag

Place egg whites in bowl and start beating at moderately slow speed for 1 to 2 minutes, until they are foamy. Beat in the salt and cream of tartar; gradually increase speed to fast, taking a minute or so, until egg whites form soft peaks. Continuing at fast speed, gradually beat in the 3 Tb sugar, and continue until egg whites form stiff, upstanding peaks. Beat in the vanilla and the almond extracts.

If you are using a standing mixer, remove bowl from stand; the rest of this operation continues rapidly by hand and your object here is to deflate the egg whites as little as possible—they must continue to hold their volume so that you can form the meringue shapes for baking. Sprinkle about ¼ cup of the almond-sugar-starch mixture over the beaten egg whites; cutting and folding with rubber spatula, delicately blend the two together, rapidly rotating bowl with one hand as you fold with the other. When almost blended, sprinkle on more of the mixture, rapidly fold in, and continue with the rest until all is used; reach all over bottom and sides of bowl with the final addition. The whole blending process should take less than a minute; scoop the meringue into the pastry bag, all of it or as much as will fit in easily.

3)
Forming the 3 meringue disks—les fonds à Succès