TARTS
Margaret’s mother did not like her to eat tarts, but she let her learn how to make them, and once in a while she had a small piece. Here is her recipe:
1 lb. of flour.
¼ lb. of butter.
¼ lb. of lard.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
½ cup of water.
Put the flour, butter, lard, and salt in a bowl, and rub well in. Then add the water, a little at a time, turning the paste and mixing till smooth, but not touching with the hand. Put a very little flour on the pastry-board and lift the crust on this, and with a floured rolling-pin lightly roll it out once each way; fold it over and roll again, and do this several times till the crust looks even, with no lumps of butter showing anywhere. Put it on a plate and lay it in the ice-chest for at least an hour before you use it.
Pie-crust will never be light and nice if you handle it. Do not touch it with your fingers unless it is really necessary. When you use it, get everything ready for the pie first, and then bring out the crust, roll quickly, and spread over the pie.
Put a narrow strip of paste all round the edge, and press it together; if you wet it with a little water it will stick.
Put on the cover, wet the edges so they will stick together, and pinch evenly.
APPLE TART
Fill a baking-dish with apples, peeled and cut in slices. Sprinkle cinnamon and plenty of sugar, about half a cup. Put in the oven and bake till the apples are soft, and then cool, put on the crust, and bake till brown. Serve powdered sugar and rich cream with this.
FRENCH PEACH PIE
Put the crust in the pie-dish as before; boil a cup of sugar with two tablespoonfuls of water till it thickens. Lay quarters of peaches in the paste, round and round, evenly, no one on top of the other. Break ten peach-stones and arrange the kernels evenly on top; then pour the syrup over, and put a few narrow strips of crust across the pie, four each way, and bake.
CRANBERRY PIE
Cook a quart of cranberries till tender, with a small cup of water; when they have simmered till rather thick, put in a heaped cup of sugar and cook five minutes more. When as thick as oatmeal, take them off the fire and put through the colander; line a tin with crust, fill with the berries, put strips of crust across, and bake. A nice plan is to take half a cup of raisins and a cup of cranberries for a pie, chopping together and cooking with water as before, adding a sprinkling of flour and a little vanilla when done.
TARTLETS
Whenever Margaret made a tart she always saved all the bits of crust and rolled them out, and lined patty-pans with them and baked them. She often filled them with raw rice while they baked, to keep them in shape, saving the rice when they were done. She filled the shells with jelly, and used the tartlets for lunch.