FoodNet

The spirit of cookery

1895

Page 230

Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
exactly of the same materials in the same propoi’tion as the scalded- water paste, but the water is cold, and consequently the butter is not fused ; the paste therefore requires a great deal more kneadiug than the hot one ; the fingers of the operator are used as dividers of the paste into flakes, which are again reunited by pressure with the palms. Short Paste for Hot Pates is also made like the previous kinds of paste, but the amount of fat is much greater, one part of butter being incorporated with two parts of flour. This paste should be kept cool, and not be worked with the hand, but with a knife or a pestle ; for at temperatures approaching that of the human body the paste loses its cohesion and plasticity, and cannot be rolled out and shaped. On account of this, some recipes diminish the butter to one part upon four parts of flour. P^(,f Paste or Plaice Dough {Pate feuilletee) is one of the most remarkable achievements of magiric art. A stiff dough made of flour, yolks, and water, is stratified with cold butter by doubling up and rolling out in such a manner that layers of dough of extreme tenuity alternate with layers of butter of similar tenuity ; for this purpose the dough must be kept very cold, in summer by artificial means. Short Puff Paste is a mixture of equal parts of puff' paste and short paste ; it is therefore less stratified than p%ff paste. The doubling or tripling up and rolling out is called in culinary language ‘ giving it a turn.’ A piece of puff paste a quarter of an inch thick will, during baking in a well-heated dry oven, rise to the height of two inches, and thus increase its perpendicular diameter eight times, while there is no notable increase towards the circumference. The French pastrycooks call the excavation in the Hour into which the liquid to be incorporated is placed une fontaine {De la Varenne, l.c., p. 168) or une fosse. 364 THE SPIRIT OF COOKERY All these varieties of paste can be made with oil, if this be freed from its flavour or odour previous to use by sub- jecting it to heat and frying a little bread in it. The Spaniards facilitate the use of oil in pastry by mixing it with heef suet ; the mixture acquires the consistency of butter, and is then incorporated with the flour in the same manner as this. All the varieties of paste enumerated above were well known more than two centuries ago, but they do not seem to have been specifically known to antiquity. There are apparently no records of the time and place at which flake doiujh was invented, or at least developed. In parts of Germany flake dough is also called Spanish dough, but no ground for this appellation has ever been given. Short Paste for Pies is made in the same manner and of the same quantities of materials as the short paste for hot psites. With acid fruit the under side of the pie-crust some- times remains pasty and soft, and, from volatile acid, of un- attractive taste. To avoid this, some cooks bake the crust separately, and cut it in slices and serve it with the fruit, but on a separate dish. Noidlles Paste has already been referred to above under the notes on soups ; remember that this paste contains no butter.