POTATO PASTE.
To two quarts of flour, allow fourteen good sized potatoes. Boil the potatoes till they are thoroughly done throughout. Then peel, and mash them very fine. Rub them through a cullender.
Having sifted the flour into a pan, add the potatoes gradually; rubbing them well into the flour with your hands. Mix in sufficient cold water to make a stiff dough. Roll it out evenly, and you may use it for apple dumplings, boiled apple pudding, beef-steak pudding, &c.
Potato paste must be sent to table quite hot; as soon as it cools it becomes tough and heavy. It is unfit for baking; and even when boiled is less light than suet paste.
FINE PUFF PASTE.
To every pound of the best fresh b.u.t.ter allow a pound or a quart of superfine flour. Sift the flour into a deep pan, and then sift on a plate some additional flour to use for sprinkling and rolling. Wash the b.u.t.ter through two cold waters; squeezing out all the salt, and whatever milk may remain in it; and then make it up with your hands into a round lump, and put it in ice till you are ready to use it. Then divide the b.u.t.ter into four equal parts.
Cut up one of the quarters into the pan of flour; and divide the remaining three quarters into six pieces, [Footnote: Or into nine; and roll it in that number of times.] cutting each quarter in half. Mix with a knife the flour and b.u.t.ter that is in the pan, adding by degrees a very little cold water till you have made it into a lump of stiff dough. Then sprinkle some flour on the paste-board, (you should have a marble slab,) take the dough from the pan by lifting it out with the knife, lay it on the board, and flouring your rolling-pin, roll out the paste into a large thin sheet. Then with the knife, put all over it, at equal distances, one of the six pieces of b.u.t.ter divided into small bits. Fold up the sheet of paste, flour it, roll it out again, and add in the same manner another of the portions of b.u.t.ter. Repeat this process till the b.u.t.ter is all in. Then fold it once more, lay it on a plate, and set it in a cool place till you are ready to use it.
Then divide it into as many pieces as you want sheets of paste; roll out each sheet, and put them into b.u.t.tered plates or patty-pans.
In using the rolling-pin, observe always to roll from you.
Bake the paste in a moderate oven, but rather quick than slow. No air must be admitted to it while baking.
The edges of paste should always be notched before it goes into the oven. For this purpose, use a sharp penknife, dipping it frequently in flour as it becomes sticky. The notches should be even and regular. If you do them imperfectly at first, they cannot be mended by sticking on additional bits of paste; as, when baked, every patch will be doubly conspicuous. There are various ways of notching; one of the neatest is to fold over one corner of each notch; or you may arrange the notches to stand upright and lie flat, alternately, all round the edge. They should be made small and regular. You may form the edge into leaves with the little tin cutters made for the purpose.
If the above directions for puff paste are carefully followed, and if it is not spoiled in baking, it will rise to a great thickness and appear in flakes or leaves according to the number of times you have put in the b.u.t.ter.
It should be eaten the day it is baked.
SWEET PASTE.
Sift a pound and a quarter of the finest flour, and three ounces of powdered loaf-sugar into a deep dish. Cut up in it ten ounces of the best fresh b.u.t.ter and rub it fine with your hands. Make a hole in the middle, pour in the yolks of two beaten eggs, and mix them with the flour, &c. Then wet the whole to a stiff paste with half a pint of rich milk. Knead it well, and roll it out.
This paste is intended for tarts of the finest sweetmeats. If used as sh.e.l.ls they should be baked empty, and filled when cool. If made into covered tarts they may be iced all over, in the manner of cakes, with beaten white of egg and powdered loaf-sugar. To make puffs of it, roll it out and cut it into round pieces with the edge of a large tumbler, or with a tin cutter. Lay the sweetmeat on one half of the paste, fold the other over it in the form of a half-moon, and unite the edges by notching them together. Bake them in a brisk oven, and when cool, send them to table handsomely arranged, several on a dish.
Sweet paste is rarely used except for very handsome entertainments. You may add some rose water in mixing it.
Sh.e.l.lS.
Sh.e.l.ls of paste are made of one sheet each, rolled out in a circular form, and spread over the bottom, sides, and edges of b.u.t.tered dishes or patty-pans, and baked empty; to be filled, when cool, with stewed fruit, (which for this purpose should be always cold,) or with sweetmeats. They should be made either of fine puff paste, or of the best plain paste, or of sweet paste. They are generally rolled out rather thick, and will require about half an hour to bake. The oven should be rather quick, and of equal heat throughout; if hotter in one part than in another, the paste will draw to one side, and be warped and disfigured. The sh.e.l.ls should be baked of a light brown. When cool, they must be taken out of the dishes on which they were baked, and transferred to plates and filled with the fruit.
Sh.e.l.ls of puff paste will rise best if baked on flat patty-pans, or tin plates. When they are cool, pile the sweetmeats on them in a heap.
The thicker and higher the paste rises, and the more it flakes in layers or leaves, the finer it is considered.
Baking paste as empty sh.e.l.ls, prevents it from being moist or clammy at the bottom.
Tarts are small sh.e.l.ls with fruit in them.
PIES.
Pies may be made with any sort of paste. It is a fault to roll it out too thin; for if it has not sufficient substance, it will, when baked, be dry and tasteless. For a pie, divide the paste into two sheets; spread one of them over the bottom and sides of a deep dish well b.u.t.tered. Next put in the fruit or other ingredients, (heaping it higher in the centre,) and then place the other sheet of paste on the top as a lid or cover; pressing the edges closely down, and afterwards crimping or notching them with a sharp small knife.
In making pies of juicy fruit, it is well to put on the centre of the under crust a common tea-cup, laying the fruit round it and over it. The juice will collect under the cup, and not be liable to run out from between the edges. There should be plenty of sugar strewed among the fruit as you put it into the pie.
Preserves should never be put into covered pies. The proper way is to lay them in baked sh.e.l.ls.
All pies are best the day they are baked. If kept twenty-four hours the paste falls and becomes comparatively hard, heavy, and unwholesome. If the fruit is not ripe, it should be stewed with sugar, and then allowed to get cold before it is put into the pie.
If put in warm it will make the paste heavy. With fruit pies always have a sugar dish on the table, in case they should not be found sweet enough.
STANDING PIES.
Cut up half a pound of b.u.t.ter, and put it into a sauce-pan with three quarters of a pint of water; cover it, and set it on hot coals. Have ready in a pan two pounds of sifted flour; make a hole in the middle of it, pour in the melted b.u.t.ter as soon as it boils, and then with a spoon gradually mix in the flour. When it is well mixed, knead it with your hands into a stiff dough.
Sprinkle your paste-board with flour, lay the dough upon it, and continue to knead it with your hands till it no longer sticks to them, and is quite light. Then let it stand an hour to cool. Cut off pieces for the bottom and top; roll them out thick, and roll out a long piece for the sides or walls of the pie, which you must fix on the bottom so as to stand up all round; cement them together with white of egg, pinching and closing them firmly. Then put in the ingredients of your pie, (which should be venison, game, or poultry,) and lay on the lid or top crust, pinching the edges closely together. You may ornament the sides and top with leaves or flowers of paste, shaped with a tin cutter, and notch or scollop the edges handsomely. Before you set it in the oven glaze it all over with white of egg. Bake it four hours. These pies are always eaten cold, and in winter will keep two or three weeks, if the air is carefully excluded from them; and they may be carried to a considerable distance.
A PYRAMID OF TARTS.
Roll out a sufficient quant.i.ty of the best puff paste, or sugar paste; and with oval or circular cutters, cut it out into seven or eight pieces of different sizes; stamping the middle of each with the cutter you intend using for the next. Bake them all separately, and when they are cool, place them on a dish in a pyramid, (gradually diminishing in size,) the largest piece at the bottom, and the smallest at the top. Take various preserved fruits, and lay some of the largest on the lower piece of paste; on the next place fruit that is rather smaller; and so on till you finish at the top with the smallest sweetmeats you have. The upper one may be not so large as a half-dollar, containing only a single raspberry or strawberry.
Notch all the edges handsomely. You may ornament the top or pinnacle of the pyramid with a sprig of orange blossom or myrtle.
APPLE AND OTHER PIES.
Take fine juicy acid apples; pare, core, and cut them into small pieces. Have ready a deep dish that has been lined with paste.
Fill it with the apples; strewing among them layers of brown sugar, and adding the rind of a lemon pared thin, and also the juice squeezed in, or some essence of lemon. Put on another sheet of paste as a lid; close the edges well, and notch them. Bake the pie in a moderate oven, about three quarters of an hour. Eat it with cream and sugar, or with cold boiled custard.
If the pie is made of early green apples, they should first be stewed with a very little water and plenty of brown sugar.
What are called sweet apples are entirely unfit for cooking, as they become tough and tasteless; and it is almost impossible to get them sufficiently done.
When you put stewed apples into baked sh.e.l.ls, grate nutmeg over the top. You may cover them with cream whipped to a stiff froth, and heaped on them.
Cranberries and gooseberries should be stewed with sugar before they are put into paste. Peaches should be cut in half or quartered, and the stones taken out. The stones of cherries and plums should also be extracted.
Raspberries or strawberries, mixed with cream and white sugar, may he put raw into baked sh.e.l.ls.
RHUBARB TARTS.
Take the young green stalks of the rhubarb plant, or spring fruit as it is called in England; and having peeled off the thin skin, cut the stalks into small pieces about an inch long, and put them into a sauce-pan with plenty of brown sugar, and its own juice.
Cover it, and let it stew slowly till it is soft enough to mash to a marmalade. Then set it away to cool. Have ready some fresh baked sh.e.l.ls; fill them with the stewed rhubarb, and grate white sugar over the top.
For covered pies, cut the rhubarb very small; mix a great deal of sugar with it, and put it in raw. Bake the pies about three quarters of an hour.
MINCE PIES.
These pies are always made with covers, and should be eaten warm.
If baked the day before, heat them on the stove or before the fire.