Puff Pastry

Hello and welcome back to yesteryear-recipes, we thought what to give you as a free recipe today, and we have decide that with all the different recipes that we can get from Grandma’s books and papers, there are lots of pies, so we have come to the conclusion that we should give you the recipe of a great pie pastry.  This one is Puff Pastry, great for meat pies, and fruit pies, in fact for any kind of pies, or tartlets.  This recipe is taken from a 1832 publication.

Ingredients

_This will make enough puff paste for two Puddings, or 1 plate Pie.

Take the flour and sift it into a mixing bowl, now take out about a quarter of the flour, and put it into a small bowl, this will be used later to roll and sprinkle with.

Take the butter, divide it in four equal pieces, cut one of the four pieces of butter and add to the flour. (remember to cut it as small as possible). Wet it gradually with a little water, (too much water will make it tough) and mix it well with the point of a large knife. (Do not touch it with your hands). The dough will form into a lump, once this is done sprinkle on the middle of the rolling board/mat some of the flour that you put into the small bowl, now lay the dough on the board/mat, turning it out of the mixing bowl with the knife. (If you don’t have a rolling board/mat, then use a clean work surface.

As with any pastry make sure to rub the rolling-pin with flour, and sprinkle a little on the lump of pastry. Roll it out thin, remember to do this quickly, and evenly, while pressing on the rolling pin very lightly. Now take another piece of butter (piece no 2), and, with the point of your knife, cut it into little bits and place it at equal distances all over the sheet of pastry. Sprinkle on some more flour, fold up the dough. Flour the board/mat and rolling pin again; throw a little flour on the pastry and roll it
out a second time. Use the third piece of butter and repeat the previous proceedure all over again and roll it out a third time, (always pressing on it lightly). Now using the last piece of butter. Throw on a little more flour, fold up the pastry and then roll it out in a large round sheet. Cut off the sides, so as to make the sheet of a square form, and lay the slips of dough onto the square sheet. Fold it up
with the small pieces of trimmings, in the inside. Score or notch it a little with the knife; lay it on a plate and set it aside in a cool place, but not where it can freeze, as that will make it heavy.

When you are ready to make your pie, bring out your pastry, flour the board and rolling pin, and roll it out with a short quick strokes, and pressing the rolling pin harder than while you were putting the butter in. If the pastry rises in blisters, it will be light. Now cut the sheet in half, fold up each piece and roll them out once more, separately, in round sheets the size of your plate. (as you can see there is a lot of rolling).

Roll the sheets thinnest in the middle and thickest at the edges. If intended for puddings,
lay them in buttered soup plates, and trim them evenly round the edges. Notch the rim handsomely with a very sharp knife. Fill the dish with the mixture of the pudding, and bake it in a moderate
oven. The pastry should be of a light brown colour. If the oven is too slow, it will be soft and clammy; if too quick, it will not have time to rise as high as it ought to do.

In making the best puff pastry, try to avoid using more flour to sprinkle and roll with, than the small portion which you have laid aside for that purpose at the beginning. If you make the dough too
soft at first, by using too much water, it will be sticky, and require more flour, and will eventually be tough when baked. Do not put your hands to it, as their warmth will injure it. Use the knife instead. Always roll from you rather than to you, and press lightly on the rolling pin, except at the last.

It is difficult to make puff pastry in the summer, you need to be in a very cool room, and on a marble table. The water should have ice in it, and the butter should be iced as it sets on the pastry board.
After the pastty is mixed, it should be put in a covered dish, and set in cold water till you are ready to give it the last rolling. With all these precautions to prevent its being heavy, it will not rise as well, or be in any respect as good as in cold weather.

I hope that all this rolling hasn’t put you off making your own pastry. I always make my pastry, and believe me it does taste good, and I love the feeling I get, when I see other people enjoying it, its then that I feel it was worth all that effort.

We will be putting more pastry recipes on the site so come back and visit us again to see what we have.

I hope that you try this.

To send us a recipe that you would like to have put on to the website just send it to recipes “at” yesteryear-recipes “dot” com,(replace “at” with @ and “Dot” with .) this as been done to control spam.  We will be happy to include your recipes onto  yesteryear-recipes as long as it is found to be appropriate and legal.

polly

Filed under: Free Recipe, pastry on August 18th, 2008