The girl's own cookery book

In short paste, as in puff paste, the addition of an egg and of a few drops of lemon-juice enriches the paste and helps to make it workable. These ingredients are not, however, absolutely necessary, and very good pastry may be made without them. Short paste is “ superior,” or “ good,” or “ plain,” according to the quality and quantity of the materials used in making it. In very rich pastry equal quantities of butter and flour would be used. Superior crust might, however, be made with less than half the weight of butter than of flour, and good economical pastry may be made with a smaller proportion of butter and a little baking-powder. Good plain pastry may be made with sweet soft beef dripping, such as is obtained from joints, or produced by rendering down any kind of soft and sweet beef fat. A great many people have a strong objection to pastry made with dripping. I cannot quite understand the delicacy of appetite which refuses good beef dripping and accepts cheap common butter. If butter is wanted, let good butter be used ; but if it is a question between dripping that is fresh, soft, and sweet, and questionable or cooking butter, I should say by all means choose the dripping. A large proportion of the composition sold under the name is not butter at all — it is coloured animal fat. Why should we not use the animal fat, i.e., dripping, and omit the colouring ? The difference in price between the adulterated article and the real one is worth consideration. And I hope the girls who attend our class will be too sensible to scorn economy in cookery. A really good cook is never a wasteful one, and it is wasteful to purchase cheap butter for every-day pastrj' when there is in the larder sweet dripping that could be employed instead. In making pastry a light cool hand is worth more than a pennyworth of colouring matter. It must not be supposed, however, that I recommend the use of all kinds of dripping in making pastry. Fresh soft beef dripping is excellent for the purpose, but mutton dripping is not so. It has a way of making pastry taste like tallow-candles ; and as Europeans have not the same taste as the Esquimaux, this flavour is not popular. Though mutton dripping is not to be made into pies, Short Paste. however, good hard mutton fat, finely shred, is almost as good as beef suet for making paste for boiled puddings. Lard is much liked by some cooks for making pastry. It is, however, better when mixed with butter or dripping than when used alone. Bacon fat also, if not too much smoked, may be employed to make pastry for meat pies. The water used in mixing pastry should be added gradually and mixed thoroughly. If a large quantity is poured in at once the pastry may be made over moist, and then an undue proportion of flour will have to be added before the pastry can be rolled. It should be remembered that it is scarcely possible to give the exact measure of water that will be needed in making pastry, because some flours absorb more moisture than others. An experienced cook could tell in a moment by touching the pastry whether or not it was of the right consistency. All one can say to the inexperienced is that pastry should be smooth and stiff, but not too stiff. If over moist it will stick to the rolling-pin or the pastry-board ; if too stiff it will not be light when baked.