[E] Or into nine; and roll it in that number of times.
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 one pound
of the best fresh butter, 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
shells, 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.
SHELLS.--Shells of paste are made of one sheet each, rolled out in a
circular form, and spread over the bottom, sides, and edges of buttered
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 shells should be baked of a light brown. When cool,
they mast be taken out of the dishes on which they were baked, and
transferred to plates, and filled with the fruit.
Shells 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 shells, prevents it from being moist or clammy at
the bottom.
Tarts are small shells 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 buttered. 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 shells.
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, sweetened, and 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 butter, 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 butter 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 quantity 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.