1501 | Chocolate Macaroons à la Aimée Delmonico.
—Neatly peel and pound half a pound of sweet almonds as in No. 1207; then transfer the paste into a vessel, add to it one pound of powdered sugar and the whites of two fresh eggs; thoroughly mix with the wooden spatula for five minutes, then add four ounces of melted cocoa; mix well again for two minutes. Slide down a tube (No. 3) into the pastry bag (No. 1079); place all the preparation in the bag. Have ready a pastry baking-pan; lay over it a sheet of brown paper so as to entirely cover the bottom; then gently press down the preparation over the paper in bits the shape of twenty-five-cent pieces, taking special care to have them all of equal size, and keeping them half an inch apart from one another, and when all in the pan gently lay a wet napkin over the macaroons for one second, to give them a perfect shape; remove the napkin and place in a slow oven to bake for twenty minutes. Take from out the oven, lay the pan on a table, and let cool off for one hour.
Wet part of a table the size of the paper containing the macaroons, then with both hands carefully lift up the paper from the pan, lay it over the moistened space of the table; allow them to rest for two minutes. Then detach them with the fingers, from the paper, place them in a tin box or glass jar, and serve when desired.
If the paste is equally divided it should give about eighty macaroons. Should the pan not be sufficiently large to bake them all at a time, they can be baked at two or three different times.
Beat up to a stiff froth, in a copper basin, the whites of four fresh eggs; remove the whip, and then with a skimmer gradually and gently mix in eight ounces of powdered sugar for three minutes.
Slide down a tube (No. 3) into the pastry bag (No. 1079); put the preparation into the bag, and lay it aside for a second. Have a very cold dessert-dish ready, and then after two hours have expired take up the mold from the pail, dip it into lukewarm water for half a second; neatly wipe it all around, remove the cover, and turn the ice-cream on the cold dish. Rapidly decorate the top and all around with the preparation in the bag, and lightly dredge powdered sugar over it. (The operation, after the ice-cream has been unmolded, should be done as rapidly as possible.) Lay the dish on a board, then place it in a very hot oven to let the méringe get a light brown color, which ought not to take more than five seconds. Remove from out the oven, suppress the board, and immediately send to the table.