1 quart flour.
⅓ lb. lard, sweet and firm.
½ lb. butter.
1 small teacup ice-water.
Sift the flour into a deep wooden bowl. With a broad-bladed knife, or
a small keen “chopper,” cut up the lard into the flour until it is
fine as dust. Wet with ice-water into a stiff dough, working it with
a wooden spoon until obliged to make it into a roll or ball with your
hands. Flour these, and knead the paste into shape with as few strokes
as will effect your end. Lay the lump upon a floured kneading-board
and roll it out into a thin sheet, always rolling from you with quick,
light action. When thin enough, stick bits of butter in regular close
rows all over the sheet, using a knife for this purpose rather than
your hands. Roll up the paste into close folds as you would a sheet
of music. Flatten it that your rolling-pin can take hold, and roll
out again as thin as before. Baste, roll up and then out, until your
butter is gone. It is a good plan to sprinkle the inside of each sheet
with a little flour after buttering it, before making it into a roll.
Finally, make out your crust; butter your pie-plates, lay the paste
lightly within them, cut it off evenly about the edges after fitting it
neatly; gather up the scraps left from cutting, and make into another
sheet. If the pies are to have a top crust, fill the plates with fruit
or whatever you have ready, lay the paste on this, cut it to fit, and
press down the edges to prevent the escape of the juice, with a spoon,
knife, or jagging-iron, ornamenting it in a regular figure.
Bake in a moderate oven until a light brown. Be particularly careful to
have your heat as great at the bottom as at the top, or the lower crust
will be clammy and raw.
Pastry is always best when fresh.
It is well, when you can spare the time, to lay the roll, when all
the butter is used up, in a very cold place for fifteen minutes or so
before rolling it into crust. Indeed, some good housewives let it stand
on the ice an hour in hot weather. They say it tends to make it flaky
as well as firm.
Touch as little with your hands as may be practicable.