Timbale de Truffes

Timbale de Truffes (truffle timbale) teaches the discipline of enclosure. The pastry is not decoration; it is an aromatic chamber, holding the truffles, bacon, Madeira, and glaze together while the oven draws their perfumes into one another. The one true thing to know before touching a pan is simple: if the seal leaks, the soul of the dish leaves with it.

The original formula assumed a pastry bench producing ordinary patty paste, whole boxes of winter truffles, and a saucier drawing pale glaze from stock never off the fire. Here the honest home equivalent is a 1 litre mould, one compact batch of pâte à foncer, and a measured spoonful of true pale chicken or veal glaze. Only the brigade abundance has been reduced. The bacon lining, Madeira, glaze, fifty-minute hot bake, and unvented pastry lid are the dish, and every one remains. One cook, one stove, one evening.

When the timbale is right, the gilded crust arrives deep gold and intact, then releases whole black truffles wrapped in tender bacon with a little glossy Madeira glaze gathering at the cut. Before the mould meets the oven, give your full attention to the final seal. Clean pastry, beaten egg, firm pressure, no vent.