Pastry

Ingredients

• 1 lb. of butter
• the same quantity of flour
• salt
• a bowl of ice-water

Method

1. 1

   Sift flour, wash butter to remove salt.

2. 2

   Mix flour, salt, and ice-water with a knife until dough adheres.

3. 3

   Knead until free from lumps.

4. 4

   Encase butter in dough, roll out, and fold several times until flaky.

5. 5

   Chill between folds.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Harper's cook book encyclopædia (1902), page 281. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

Pastry all into a large preserving-kettle, cov- er well with vinegar, and boil half an hour, or until tender. Chutney, Indian. — Boil together a pint of good vinegar with x/z lb. of sour, unripe apples, peeled, cored, and quartered. When pulped and cool, add, first pounding them sepa- rately in a mortar and afterwards to- gether, the following ingredients : 4 ozs. of stoned raisins, 8 ozs. of brown sugar, 2 ozs. of garlic, and 2 ozs. of mustard-seed ; mix these well with 2 ozs. of powdered ginger, the same of salt, and I oz. of cayenne. Put the mixture into an earthenware jar, and set the jar in a warm corner by the fire until next morning, when the chutney may be put into small jars and tied down. It will keep good a year or two. PIES, TARTS, ETC. Pastry. — In making pastry the flour should be well sifted, and the butter carefully washed, so as to free it from salt. For very rich crust 1 lb. of butter to the same quantity of flour is the rule. No pie-crust, no matter how carefully prepared and nice the ingredients, will be as light as it should be if mixed in a warm room. As little time should elapse between mixing and baking the crust as pos- sible, and after baking set it in a cool, dry place. Use ice-water for mixing. Mix the salt, flour, and water to- gether with a knife until the dough will adhere, but not stick, to the board. Knead well until it seems free from lumps, then make a cake of it, and just in the middle put the butter, which should be in a round ball ; bring the dough up all around it, and let it cover the butter on top, too; then with the rolling-pin roll from you until you have a long, narrow roll ; take the end farthest from you, and lay it over on the roll about the length of your fin- ger ; then take hold of this fold and make another, not by turning it over towards you, but drawing the whole roll along until it folds under the same length as the one on top. When it is all folded roll it out again, not being discouraged if the butter sticks to the pin ; scrape it off. Roll this way four or five times, or until the paste seems flaky, and the butter not in lumps, but rather in layers. One great secret is to roll from you, never towards you. and work it gently ; practice will give just the right touch. Some persons use lard and butter mixed, others contend that lard alone makes a richer, lighter crust; others prefer butter alone. If the oven be too hot, the crust will not rise, and if not hot enough it will be sodden. It is always best to try a small piece before you put in the whole. In fruit pies, that are apt to boil over, when the bottom crust is in the pie -dish, and just before you put on the sec- ond, moisten the edge of the former with cold water ; then pinch the edges of the two crusts well together, making plenty of air-holes, and there will be no further trouble. Plain pastry, quite palatable (indeed, preferred by some to the richer sort), is made very much as soda biscuits, viz., to two quarts of flour allow x/i lb. of butter and lard, made up into a moderately stiff dough with a pint of sour cream or buttermilk, in which has been dissolved half a teaspoonful of carbonate of soda ; knead only enough to mix well, roll out, and with it line your pie-plates. Puff Paste. — One pound of flour sifted three times, the yolks of two eggs, a bowl of ice-water

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.