The richest pastry for pies is called puff paste, and much skill
and practice are required to make it flaky, tender, and very light.
First-class puff paste will rise in baking to double its thickness
and be in light, flaky layers and without greasiness. The novice must
learn to handle it as lightly and little as possible in rolling and
turning. It should be put in the ice-box as soon as made and stand at
least twelve hours before being used.
Pastry flour should always be used for pie crust. It is whiter than
bread flour and when rubbed between the fingers it feels very smooth
and soft, like corn-starch. Carefully sift before using.
Where it is desired to have a plainer pastry, or one less troublesome
to make and more economical, the use of a small quantity of Royal
Baking Powder will give a light and tender crust. As in other cases,
the baking powder must be mixed and sifted with the flour before the
shortening is added. Sweet home-made lard may be used in place of
butter, either wholly or in part, giving a less expensive but equally
good and light paste. Never use sour milk or so-called prepared or
self-raising flours.
=Paste for Pies.=—3 cups sifted flour, ½ teaspoon Royal Baking Powder,
large pinch salt, 1 cup cream, ½ cup butter. Sift flour, salt, and
powder together; add the cream; mix into smooth, rather firm paste;
flour the board, roll it out thin; spread the butter on it evenly,
fold in three; roll out thin, and fold in three; repeat twice more and
use.
=Paste, 2.=—3 cups flour, ½ teaspoon Royal Baking Powder, ½ pound beef
suet, freed of skin and chopped very fine, 1 cup water. Place the
flour, sifted with the powder, in bowl; add suet and water; mix into
smooth, rather firm dough.
=Paste, 3.=—3 cups sifted flour, ½ cup lard, 1½ cups butter, ½
teaspoon Royal Baking Powder, 1 cup water. Cut lard into flour, sifted
with powder; mix into smooth, firm paste with the water; place it
to cool for 15 minutes; meanwhile press milk and salt from butter
by pressing in clean, wet towel, and flour it. Roll out dough on
well-floured board; place butter on it; fold dough over it, completely
covering butter; roll it out lightly to ½ inch in thickness, turn it
over, fold each end to middle, flour it, roll out again; fold ends to
middle, and turn it; repeat this 3 times more, and use. If this paste
is made in summer, put on ice after each operation of folding and
rolling.
=Paste, 4.=—5 cups flour, 1 cup butter, 1 cup lard, 1 cup water, ½
teaspoon Royal Baking Powder. Sift flour with powder; rub in lard and
butter cold; add the water; mix into a smooth, lithe dough.
=Paste, 5 (Puff Paste).=—3 cups sifted flour, 2 cups butter, 1 egg
yolk, a little salt. This is difficult to make. The essentials are:
A cool place to make it in, ice broken up in 2 shallow cake pans,
good flour, and butter, firm, with salt and buttermilk worked out.
Sift flour on pastry slab, form it in a ring with back of your hand.
Place in center the egg yolk and salt; add a little ice-water, and
from inside of ring gradually take flour, adding a little at a time,
as you require it, more ice-water, about a cup altogether, until you
have smooth, fine paste, very tenacious and lithe. Place in ice-box 15
minutes, then roll out to size of a dinner-plate; lay on it butter,
and wrap over it edges of dough, carefully covering it; turn it upside
down, roll out very thin; then turn face down—the face is side of
paste next to rolling-pin—folding it in three, squarely; repeat this
_three times more_, placing it in thin tin on the broken ice, and
other tin containing ice _on it_, after each turn or operation of
folding and rolling. By this method this difficult puff paste may be
made successfully in hottest weather.
=Paste, 6.=—3 cups sifted flour, 1 large cup butter, ½ teaspoon Royal
Baking Powder, 3 tablespoons sugar, ½ cup milk. Sift flour with powder
and sugar, rub in butter, add milk; mix into a smooth dough of medium
stiffness.
=Apple Pot-Pie.=—14 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced, 1½ pints flour,
1 teaspoon Royal Baking Powder, 1 cup sugar, ½ cup butter, 1 cup milk,
large pinch salt. Sift flour with powder and salt, rub in butter cold,
add milk, mix into dough as for tea biscuits; with it line shallow
stewpan to within 2 inches of bottom; pour in 1½ cups water, apples,
and sugar; wet edges and cover with rest of dough; put cover on, set
it to boil 20 minutes, then place in moderate oven until apples are
cooked; then remove from oven, cut top crust in four equal parts; dish
apples, lay on them pieces of side crust cut in diamonds, and pieces
of top crust on a plate; serve with cream.
=Apple Pie.=—5 or 6 apples, 1 cup sugar, ⅓ cup water, 1 teaspoon
extract lemon, paste, 4. Peel, quarter, and core apples, put in
stewpan with sugar and water; when tender, remove; when cold, add
extract and fill pie-plate, lined with paste; wet the edges, cover
with paste rolled out thin, and wash with milk; bake in steady,
moderate oven 20 minutes.
=Apple Pie, 2.=—3 tart apples, ½ cup sugar, ½ lemon rind grated,
paste, 4. Peel, core, and slice apples very thin; line pie-plate with
paste; put in apples, sugar, and little water; wet the edges, cover
with paste rolled out very thin; wash with milk; bake in steady,
moderate oven 25 minutes—or till apples are cooked.
=Dried Apple Pie.=—Stew apples until quite soft; rub through a
colander; have them juicy. Beat 2 eggs, saving the white of 1; ½ cup
butter, ½ cup sugar to every pie; season to taste. Quantity of sugar
must be governed somewhat by the acidity of the apples. Bake with a
bottom crust; while they are baking make a frosting of the white of 1
egg; when pies are done spread frosting evenly over the top; set again
in the oven and brown slightly.
=Cream Pie and Oranges.=—Cut the oranges in thin slices and sprinkle
sugar over them; let them stand for 2 or 3 hours; serve in ordinary
fruit-plates. The pie is made with a bottom crust only, and that not
thick, but light and flaky. Take 1 coffee-cup thick, sweet cream, ½
cup pulverized sugar, 1 tablespoon flour, 1 egg; flavor with extract
lemon; bake until you are sure the crust is brown and hard, so that it
will not absorb the custard.
=Banbury Tarts.=—Chop 1 cup seeded raisins, add ½ cup cleaned
currants, 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons cracker dust, 1 beaten egg, juice
and grated rind 1 lemon. Roll pie crust, 5 very thin, cut in circles.
Lay on each a tablespoonful of filling; wet edges of paste; fold each
side over the middle to form pointed ovals, dust with granulated
sugar, and bake 20 minutes in slow oven.
=Cocoanut Pie.=—Proceed as for custard pie, (plain), adding 1½ cups
grated cocoanut, and leaving out ½ pint milk.
=Cranberry Pie.=—Paste, 4, 3 cups cranberries, stewed with 1½ cups
sugar, and strained. Line pie-plate with paste; put in cranberry jam;
wash the edges, lay 3 narrow bars across; fasten at edge, then 3 more
across, forming diamond-shaped spaces. Lay rim of paste, 5, or of
same; wash with egg wash; bake in quick oven until paste is cooked.
=Custard Pie (Plain).=—Paste, 6, 1½ pints milk, 4 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 1
teaspoon extract lemon, add pinch salt. Line well-greased pie-plate ¼
inch thick, take ball of paste, flour it well, and proceed, with palm
of left hand pressed against edge, to push the paste from center into
a thick, high rim on edge of plate. Fill while in oven with sugar,
eggs, and milk, beaten with extract and strained; bake in moderate
oven 20 minutes.
=Custard Pie (Apple).=—Proceed as for custard pie (peach),
substituting thick, stewed apples.
=Custard Pie (Peach).=—Proceed as for custard pie (plain), laying in
bottom of pie some cooked, fresh, or canned peaches, then adding the
custard.
=Fruit Pies of all Kinds.=—Use about 3 cups prepared fruit for each
pie. Heap fruit in center. Sprinkle with sugar to sweeten; if juicy,
add 1 teaspoon or more of flour with sugar. Use pie crust, 4 or 6.
=Gooseberry Pie.=—Paste, 5, 3 cups gooseberries, stewed with 1½ cups
sugar 15 minutes, and strained. Proceed as directed for cranberry pie.
=Lemon Cream Pie.=—Paste, 5, 1½ pints milk, 3 tablespoons corn-starch,
1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons butter, grated rind and juice of 2 lemons,
yolks 4 eggs. Boil milk, add corn-starch dissolved in a little cold
milk; when it reboils, take off, beat in yolks, butter, lemon juice,
and rind; pour at once into pie-plates lined with paste, having high
rim—as described in custard pie; bake in hot oven until paste is
cooked—about 20 minutes.
=Lemon Cream Meringue Pie.=—Having made the lemon cream pie, whip
whites of 4 eggs to dry froth; gently incorporate 1 cup sugar; spread
over top of pie; dust with powdered sugar; return to oven to set fawn
color.
=Lovers of Chocolate=, in any and every form, can make this addition
to a common custard pie. Beat 1 egg to a stiff froth, then add
pulverized sugar and grated chocolate with ½ teaspoon extract vanilla;
spread this on the top of the pie and let it harden for a moment
in the oven. Or you may prepare it in still another way. Put the
chocolate in a basin on the back of the stove, and let it melt (do not
put a drop of water with it); when melted beat 1 egg and some sugar in
with it. In the latter case it will be a regular chocolate brown in
color, and in the other a sort of gray.
=Mince Pie.=—Paste, 3, 2 cups mince-meat.
=Mince-meat.=—7 pounds currants, 3½ pounds peeled and cored apples, 3½
pounds beef, 3½ pounds suet, ½ pound each citron, lemon, and orange
peel, 2½ pounds coffee sugar, 2 pounds raisins, 4 nutmegs, 1 ounce
cinnamon, ½ ounce each cloves and mace, 1 pint brandy, and 1 pint
white wine. Wash currants, dry, pick them; stone the raisins; remove
skin and sinews from beef and suet. Chop each ingredient, separately,
very fine; put into large pan as they are finished, finally adding
spices, brandy, and wine; thoroughly mix together; pack in jars; store
in cold, dry place. This mince-meat will keep from 12 to 18 months.
The fruit should never be floured in making mince pie.
=Mince-meat, 2.=—2 pounds currants, 5 pounds peeled and cored apples,
2 pounds lean boiled beef, 1 pound beef suet, ¾ pound citron, 2½
pounds coffee sugar, 2 pounds raisins, 1 pound seedless raisins, 2
tablespoons cinnamon, 1 nutmeg, 1 tablespoon each mace, cloves, and
allspice, 1 pint each Madeira wine and brandy. Wash currants, dry,
pick them; stone the raisins; remove skin and sinews from the beef.
Chop each ingredient up, separately, very fine; place as soon as
done in large pan, finally adding spices, Madeira, and brandy; mix
thoroughly; pack in jars; keep in cold place.
=Peach Tart.=—For each large peach allow 1 tablespoon sugar and 1
tablespoon water. Fill baking-dish with sliced peaches, add sugar
and water. Cover with pie crust, 6, bake in moderate oven about 30
minutes. Serve hot with cream.
=Plum Pie.=—Paste, 5, 3 cups plums; simmer in water, cover with 1½
cups sugar, until tender. Line pie-plate with the paste; wet edges;
cover; wash with egg; bake in quick oven 20 minutes.
=Pumpkin or Squash Pie.=—Use pie crust, 4 or 6. Mix 3 cups thick stewed
and sieved pumpkin or squash, 2 cups milk, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon
salt, 2 eggs, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, pinch cloves. Line 2 pie-plates as
for custard pie; bake in moderate oven.
=Rhubarb Pie.=—Paste, 4, 1½ bunches rhubarb, 1½ cups sugar. Cut fruit
in small pieces after stripping off skin, cook it very fast in shallow
stewpan, with sugar. Line pie-plate with the paste; wet rim; add
rhubarb, cold; lay 3 bars paste across, fastening ends; lay 3 more
across, forming diamond-shaped spaces; lay round a rim, wash over with
egg, and bake in quick oven 15 minutes.
=Tarts: Gooseberry, Currant, Apple, or any other Fruit.=—Time to bake,
from ¾ to 1 hour. 1 quart gooseberries, rather more than ½ pound
paste, moist sugar to taste. Cut off tops and tails from gooseberries,
or pick currants from their stems, or pare and quarter the apples or
peaches; put them into pie-dish with sugar, line edge of dish with
paste, pour in a little Water, put on cover, ornament edge of paste in
the usual manner, and bake it in a brisk oven.
=Tartlets.=—Time to bake, ¼ hour. Line some patty-pans with puff
paste, fill them with any jam or preserve, and bake lightly.
=Open Jam Tart.=—Time to bake, until paste loosens from the dish. Line
shallow tin dish with puff paste, put in the jam, roll out some of
paste, wet it lightly with yolk of an egg beaten with a little milk
and a tablespoon of powdered sugar; cut it in very narrow strips, then
lay them across the tart; lay another strip round the edge, trim off
outside, and bake in quick oven.