Cookery for busy lives and small incomes

The pastry must be kept cold during the making and handled as little as possible. Handling presses out the air, and it is the expansion of the cold air in the pastry when it is put into a hot oven that throws the paste up and makes it light. The oven must be very hot when the paste is put in, that the starch cells in the flour may burst and absorb the fat. If the oven is warm but not hot, the fat melts and runs out of the pastry, which is in consequence heavy. Pastry which is greasy while baking is always heavy and tough. Roll pastry lightly ; heavy rolling presses out the air. To put a Cover on a Pie or Tart Roll out the pastry to an oval shape. Then reverse the pie dish, lay the paste over the under side and cut it round the edge. This will give a sufficiently large piece of paste to cover the pie when the ingredients are raised (as they should be) in the middle. Lay the cover in a cool place, roll out the remaining scraps, and cut them into strips of about an inch in width ; wet the edge of the pie dish, lay these round, then put in the dish whatever ingredients the pie or tart is composed of, heaping them well in the middle. Wet the edge of the pastry round the dish and lay the paste cover over. Trim round the edges of the pastry, holding the pie in your left hand and cutting from you. Make a hole in the centre of the paste over a meat pie, to let the gases from the meat escape. Make a small hole in either side of a tart, to let the steam escape. Meat pies may be decorated with paste leaves, but for a fruit tart the cover is left plain. Baking of Pastry The oven must be very hot when the pastry is put in, but when the pastry has risen well and is set, the oven should be kept at a moderate heat. Great heat during the whole time of baking would make the pies or tarts dry. They can finish cooking on the top of the stove if more convenient. Short Crust Ingredients. — 1 lb. of flour, 3, 4, or 6 ozs. of lard or dripping, 1 teaspoonful of baking powder, or 2 if very little fat is used, salt. Method. — Put the flour into a basin, add to it some salt, and rub the fat into it lightly with the tips of the fingers, add the baking powder and mix the paste with the blade of a knife, using as little water as possible. Avoid handling the paste more than necessary. Roll lightly to the required size. Flaky Crust Ingredients. — 1 lb. of bread dough, ready for baking, 2 or 3 ozs. of lard or dripping. Method. — Roll the bread dough thinly and spread it with lard or dripping, fold in two and spread again. Fold and spread again ; do this four times. Let the paste stand for an hour and then roll it out. Flaky Crust (another way) Ingredients. — 1 lb. of flour, 3, 4, or 6 ozs. of lard or dripping, 1 teaspoonful of baking powder, or two if very little fat is used, salt. Method. — Rub half the fat into the flour, mix with cold water and roll out very thinly ; put the fat about it in small pieces, dredge it with flour, and then fold it in three, and then in three again. Roll out and use. Suet Crust for Boiled Puddings Ingredients. — 1 lb. of flour, 3, 4, or 6 ozs. of suet, 1 or 2 teaspoonfuls of baking powder, cold water, salt.