THE BEST PUFF-PASTE.—
To a pound of the best fresh butter allow a pound of the finest flour, sifted into a deep pan. Have on a plate some additional sifted flour for sprinkling and rolling in. Divide the pound of butter into four equal parts, and three of those parts divide again into two portions. Mix the first quarter of butter into the mass of flour, cutting it with a broad-bladed knife. If your hands are naturally warm, avoid touching the dough with them, as their heat will render it heavy. Paste, to be very good, should be made on a marble slab. All well-furnished kitchens or pastry rooms should be provided with marble-topped tables, and marble mortars. Add gradually to the lump of dough a very little cold water, barely sufficient to moisten it with the first quarter of butter, and mix it well with the aid of the broad knife; but proceed as fast as you can, and do not work with it too long. Too much water will render it tough, and too much working will make it heavy. Then sprinkle the marble slab with some of the spare flour, take the lump of paste from the pan, and roll it out into a sheet. Divide one of the portions of butter into little bits, and with the knife disperse them equally all over the sheet of paste. Then sprinkle it again with flour, fold it up so as to cover the butter, and roll it out again. Proceed in this manner till you have got in all the butter, rolling always lightly, and you will soon see the surface of the dough puffing up in little blisters, a sign that it is becoming light. Besides the first mixing in the lump, the butter will then be put in with what are called six turns. When baked, you will see that every turn makes a layer or sheet. If you choose to multiply them, you may make nine sheets. We have seen twelve. All this must be done fast and lightly. Then put away the paste to cool for ten minutes before arranging it in the dishes. This quantity will make two pies or four tarts. In baking, let the oven be hot, and keep up a steady heat, so the paste may not fall after it has first risen. When pale brown, it is done.
SHELLS.—
For shells take the best puff paste, and line with it large deep plates, the size of a soup-plate. They should have broad rims. Notch the edges of the paste handsomely with a sharp penknife, and be careful not to plaster on, afterwards, any bits by way of mending or rectifying an error. When baked, every patch in the border will show itself plainly. Bake the shells entirely empty, till pale brown all over. When cool fill them, quite up the top, with whatever marmalade or stewed fruit you have prepared for the purpose. In this way (baking them empty,) the shells are thoroughly done, and not clammy and heavy at the bottom, as they always are when filled before baking. The fruit requires no other cooking, having been done once already. Sift white sugar over the surface. If for company whip some cream, sweeten it, and flavor it with lemon, orange, pine-apple, strawberry or vanilla, and pile it on the surface of the shell before it goes to table.
Small tarts may, in this way, be baked empty, for patty-pans, and filled with ripe fruit, such as strawberries, raspberries, or grated pine-apple, made very sweet, and creamed on the top—or you may fill the shells with any sort of sweetmeats, either preserves or marmalade, or with mince-meat. Shells may be made thus, and filled with stewed oysters, or reed-birds, cooked previously, and served up warm; or with nicely-dressed lobster. You may make lids for them of the same paste baked by itself on a shallow plate, and when taken off fitting well as a cover to put on afterwards before sending to table.
BORDERS OF PASTE.—
These are made of fine puff-paste cut into handsome patterns, or wreaths of leaves or flowers. They are laid round the broad edge of the deep plate that contains a rich pudding, such as lemon, orange, almond, cocoa-nut, pine-apple, &c.; the dish being full down to the bottom and up to the top, and having no paste but the border round the edge. They must be baked in the dish on which they come to table, and not in tin or iron, as the pudding cannot be transferred. At handsome tables, a pudding baked with a paste under it (lining the dish,) is now seen but seldom.
Instead of wreaths, you may make a puff-paste border by laying a thick evenly cut band of paste round the flat rim of the dish, and notching it, forming with a penknife small squares about an inch wide, and turning one square up and one square down alternately, cheveux de frize fashion. Or you may make the squares near two inches wide and turn over one corner sharp, leaving the other flat. This looks pretty when baked, if the paste is very puff.