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Classic
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page 284
PASTRY, PIES AND TARTS.
GENERAL REMARKS.
Use the very best materials in making pastry; the shortening should be fresh,
sweet, and hard; the water cold (ice water is best), the paste rolled on a cold
board, and all handled as little as possible.
When the crust is made, it makes it much more flakey and puff much more to put
it in a dish covered with a cloth, and set in a very cold place for half an
hour, or even an hour; in summer, it could be placed in the ice box.
A great improvement is made in pie-crust by the addition of about a heaping
teaspoonful of baking-powder to a quart of flour, also brushing the paste as
often as rolled out, and the pieces of butter placed thereon, with the white of
an egg, assists it to rise in leaves or flakes. As this is the great beauty of
puff-paste, it is as well to try this method.
If currants are to be used in pies, they should be carefully picked over, and
washed in several waters, dried in a towel, and dredged with flour before they
are suitable for use.
Raisins, and all dried fruits for pies and cakes, should be seeded, stoned, and
dredged with flour, before using.
Almonds should be blanched by pouring boiling water upon them, and then slipping
the skin off with the fingers. In pounding them, always add a little rose or
orange water, with fine sugar, to prevent their becoming oily.
Great care is requisite in heating an oven for baking pastry. If you can hold
your hand in the heated oven while you count twenty, the oven has just the
proper temperature, and it should be kept at this temperature as long as the
pastry is in; this heat will bake to a light brown, and will give the pastry a
fresh and flakey appearance. If you suffer the heat to abate, the under crust
will become heavy and clammy, and the upper crust will fall in.
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