FoodNet

The school cookery book

1881

Page 49 · 6 recipe records on this page

Presented as published in 1881. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Economical Short Crust.— Required: % lb. flour ; 2 oz. dripping ; x pinch baking powder ; 1 tea- spoonful sugar ; about teacupful cold water. Rub the flour and dripping lightly together with the finger tips till they are of the consistency of fine bread-crumbs; add the sugar and baking-powder, and stir in gradually as much cold water as will make it into a dough stiff enough to turn out of the basin in one lump, leaving the basin clean. Roll the paste out once, and it is then ready for use. This will cover a very small tart, or make about six tartlets. If used with meat, take a pinch of salt instead of the sugar. Richer Short Crust. — Required: 4 oz. flour; 2 oz. butter;Grilled Mushrooms egg (yolk and white mixed); 1 tea- spoonful of sugar ; 1 tablespoonful cold water. Prepare as in last recipe, omitting the baking- powder, and add the half egg with the sugar. Fruit Tart.- — Reverse the empty pie-dish upon the paste, and with a knife dipped in flour cut the paste close off by the outer rim of the dish. Fill the pie-dish with fruit and sugar, allowing about 3 oz. sugar to the pound of fruit ; wet the edge of the dish with water. Cut part of the remaining pastry into a strip, place this upon the wetted edge of the dish, then wet the top of this strip, and place upon it the piece of paste first cut out. Press this upper piece against the strip with your thumbs, then with a sharp knife dipped in flour, cut the paste sharply round at the outer rim of the dish. To ornament, place the thumb upon the edge of the pastry, and draw the back of a knife quickly up against the double layer of 104 PASTRY. pastry at short intervals. Brush the pastry over with sugar and water or with milk. Place in a hot part of the oven for five minutes, to allow the starch-cells of the flour to burst, and the dripping melted by the heat to be absorbed by them, and then remove to a cooler part until the pastry and fruit are cooked. Dredge the tart over with a little white sugar before serving. To make Tartlets, cut out the paste into round shapes with a tumbler or tin paste-cutter dipped in flour; slightly grease small patty tins, fit a round of paste into each tin, brush the edge of the paste with a little sugar and' water, and half fill with jam or stewed fruit. Bake as directed above. Cornish Pasties.- — -Required: short crust (the quantity given at page 103); 2 oz. scraps of meat ; 1 potato (parboiled); 1 onion; % teaspoonful salt; 1 pinch of pepper. Roll out the paste very thin ; cut it into rounds with a tin cutter or small saucepan lid (the quantity mentioned should make four). Chop the meat ; skin and chop the parboiled potato; skin, parboil, and chop the onion ; mix the meat, potato, onion, pepper, and saltMeat Pasties together. Divide it into as many portions as there are rounds of paste ; place each in the centre of a round. Wet the edge with a little cold water, double the round, and press the edges together. Raise the pastie, letting it rest on the middle of the round ; with the fingers bend the edges into deep curves. Brush over the pasties with a little milk, place in a greased tin, and bake in an oven for about half an hour. Economical Flaky Crust. — Required: % lb. flour; 2 oz. dripping; about a gill of cold water; a pinch of baking-powder ; a pinch of salt. PASTRY. 105 Economical Flaky Crust