Few people are successful in making pastry. Yet, with a little practice, there is no reason why any one should not make it with some degree of perfection, if the following rules are carefully attended to.

Make the pastry in a cool place, not in a hot kitchen. The board, rolling-pin, and hands should be as cold as possible. Handle it very lightly. The colder pastry is kept during making, the lighter it will be, because it will contain more air; cold air occupies a much less space than warm. The colder the air, the greater, consequently, will be its expansion when the pastry is put into a very hot oven. Roll the paste lightly, and not more than necessary. Puff paste is a kind of fine sandwich. There should be a certain number of layers of dough and layers of butter. Take care, therefore, that the butter is not allowed to break through the dough; and be very careful to follow the directions given for making this pastry. Its manufacture requires patience, because, if it is not properly cooled between the turns, the friction of rolling will warm the butter, and cause it to smear into the dough. For short crust, rub the butter or fat lightly into the flour with the tips of the fingers; and do not use more water than necessary in mixing it. This is a common mistake; and too much water deprives the paste of its shortness. Short paste is the best for children and persons of weak digestion; the flour in it being more thoroughly incorporated with the fat, gets better cooked. It is, therefore, capable of more perfect mastication than puff or flaky crust, both of which are liable to be swallowed in flakes.

However well pastry is made, success will not be attained unless the oven is rightly heated. The very lightest crusts will often be totally spoiled in the baking because this important point is not attended to. If the oven is not very hot, the fat will melt and run out of the pastry before the starch grains in the flour burst; consequently, they cannot afterwards expand, however hot the oven may be made; and in this way the paste will become heavy. Take great care, therefore, that the oven is very hot when the paste is put into it.

Watch the paste carefully that it does not take too dark a colour. When it is well thrown up and nearly cooked, it may be removed to a more moderately heated part of the oven if it should appear to be browning too quickly.

Ovens in which the heat comes from the bottom are decidedly the best for either cakes or pastry; but no one should expect to bake well in an oven they do not thoroughly understand. There is so much difference in ovens, that the hottest part of one may be the coolest in another. To bake well requires practice and experience, and no one should be discouraged by a few failures.

Puff Paste.

• Ingredients—Equal quantities of Vienna flour and butter.
• A few drops of lemon juice.
• Enough water to mix the flour into a nice lithe dough.

Method.—Rub the flour through a wire sieve.

Make a well in the middle, and squeeze in a few drops of lemon juice.

Mix very gradually with very cold water, taking care that the dough is not too stiff.

Then knead and work well about until quite smooth. Set it aside for a few minutes to get quite cold.

Squeeze the butter in a cloth to press out the water.

Roll out the dough, and place the butter, flattened to a third of its size, in the middle.

Then fold the dough from either side over it, pressing the edges together.

Turn it with its edges toward you, and roll out very gently (care must be taken that the butter does not break through the dough).

Fold it again in three, and put it aside to cool for quite a quarter of an hour. The colder it is kept the better.

Then turn its edges towards you, and roll it out again; fold evenly in three, and roll and fold again in the same manner; each roll and fold is called a turn.

Cool the paste for another quarter of an hour.

Then give it two more turns.

Let it cool again; and at the seventh roll it will probably be ready for use.

It is, however, wise to bake a small piece of the paste before using the whole quantity. If the maker has a very light hand it sometimes happens that eight or even nine turns may be necessary to roll the butter sufficiently into the flour.

Patty Cases.

Roll the puff paste, when ready, to rather more than a quarter of an inch in thickness.

Take a fluted cutter about the size of a tumbler.

Dip it in very hot water, and cut the paste into rounds with it.

Mark the middle of these rounds with a cutter about three sizes smaller.

Roll out the remains of the paste to half the thickness of the patties.

Stamp out some rounds for covers with a fluted cutter two sizes smaller than that used for the cases. Put the cases and covers on a baking-tin, and bake in a quick oven for ten or fifteen minutes.

When cooked, lift the lid and scrape out the soft inside carefully.

Good Short Crust.

• Ingredients—1lb. of flour.
• ¾lb. of butter.
• Enough cold water to mix rather stiffly.
• A pinch of salt.

Method.—Rub the butter into the flour until like fine bread-crumbs.

Mix with cold water, using as little as possible (if too much is used the crust will not be short).

Roll gently to make the paste bind.

If this paste is used for tarts, add one dessertspoonful of castor sugar to the flour.

Plainer Short Crust.

• Ingredients—1lb. of flour.
• ¼lb. of butter.
• ¼lb. of lard.
• 1 teaspoonful of baking powder.
• Water enough to bind.

Method.—Make according to directions given in preceding recipe.

Economical Short Crust.

• Ingredients—1lb. of flour.
• ½lb. of clarified dripping or lard.
• 1 teaspoonful of baking powder.
• Enough water to mix.

To make this crust still plainer, a quarter of a pound only of clarified dripping or lard may be taken, and three good teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Method.—Make according to the directions for Short Crust.

Flaky Crust.

• Ingredients—1lb. of flour.
• ½lb. of butter or dripping.
• A pinch of salt.
• Enough cold water to mix the paste.

Method.—Rub one half of the butter into the flour, as for short crust.

Mix with the water, and roll it out very thinly.

Put the remainder in little pieces on the paste.

Fold in three, and then in three again.

Roll out to the size required.

Rough Puff Paste.

• Ingredients—1lb. of flour.
• ½lb. of butter, lard, or dripping.
• Salt.
• Cold water.

Method.—Break the fat into the flour in pieces.

Add a pinch of salt.

Mix with a little cold water.

Turn on to a board.

Roll and fold four times.

Flaky Bread Crust.

• Ingredients—1lb. of bread dough.
• Some butter, lard, or dripping.

Method.—Roll out the dough very thin, and spread with the fat.

Fold in two.

Spread again with fat.

Fold in two, and spread once more with fat.

Fold again, and set aside for one hour.

Then roll out and use.

Beef-steak Pie.

• Ingredients—2lb. of nice beef-steak.
• ½lb. of bullock's kidney.
• 1lb. of flaky or rough puff paste.
• 1 tablespoonful of flour.
• ½ pint of water.
• Pepper and salt.

Method.—Roll the paste to a quarter of an inch in thickness.

Invert the pie-dish, and cut the paste to the size and shape of the under side of it.

Roll out the remainder, and cut a band one inch wide.

Wet the edge of the pie-dish, and place this round it.

Cut the beef into thin strips.

Dip them in flour, and season with pepper and salt.

Roll each of the strips round a tiny piece of fat.

Put them into the pie-dish alternately with pieces of kidney.

Raise them in the middle of the dish in a dome-like form, and pour in the water.

Wet the edges of the paste lining of the dish, and lay the cover over.

Press the edges lightly together, and trim round with a knife.

Make a hole in the middle of the paste to let the gases from the meat escape.

Brush the crust with beaten egg, and decorate with leaves cut from the trimmings.

Bake for about two hours.

The pie should be put into a quick oven until the pastry is cooked; the heat must then be moderated to cook the meat thoroughly without drying up the pastry. If possible, finish cooking the meat on the top of the oven.

Some people prefer stewing the meat before using it in the pie. If this is done, it must be allowed to get cold before the pie is made.

It is an improvement to the pie to put layers of oysters, bearded, alternately with the rolls of beef.

Rabbit Pie.

• Ingredients—1 rabbit.
• ¼lb. of salt pork.
• 1lb. of rough puff or flaky paste.
• ½ pint of water.
• 2 hard-boiled eggs.
• Pepper and salt.

Method.—Prepare the paste as for beef-steak pie, lining the dish in the same manner.

Cut the rabbit into neat joints.

Season them with pepper and salt.

Put them in the pie-dish alternately with the pork.

Pour in the water, and cover with the paste.

Brush over with beaten egg, and decorate with paste leaves.

Make a hole in the middle of the crust for the gases to escape.

Bake for about an hour, attending to directions given for baking beef-steak pie.

Mince Pies.

• Ingredients—Puff and other pastry.
• Mincemeat.
• Castor sugar.
• White of 1 egg.

The Mincemeat.

• Ingredients—1lb. of suet.
• 1lb. of apples.
• 1lb. of sugar.
• 1lb. of currants.
• 1lb. of raisins.
• 1lb. of candied peel.
• The grated rind of 3 lemons.
• ¼lb. of ratafias soaked in brandy.

Method.—Chop the suet.

Wash and dry the currants.

Stone and cut the raisins in halves.

Peel, core, and mince the apples.

Chop the candied peel.

Mix all the ingredients well together.

Put them into a stone jar; cover closely and keep for a month.

To Make the Pies.

Roll the paste out, and stamp it into rather large rounds with a fluted cutter dipped in hot water.

Lay half the rounds on patty pans.

Wet the edges of the pastry, and put some mincemeat into the middle of each round.

Cover with the remaining rounds, pressing the edges lightly together.

To glaze, brush them with a little white of egg, and dust with castor sugar.

Bake in a quick oven for ten or fifteen minutes.

Mushroom Pie.

• Ingredients—Puff, flaky, or short crust.
• Mushrooms.
• Boiled potatoes.
• Butter.
• Pepper and salt.

Method.—Roll out the paste, and prepare a pie-dish as for beef-steak pie.

Mash the potatoes with butter, pepper, and salt.

Peel the mushrooms, and cut off the ends of the stalks. Put the potatoes and mushrooms in alternate layers in the pie-dish.

Cover with the paste, and finish off and decorate like a beef-steak pie.

Bake in a quick oven for about three quarters of an hour.

Pigeon Pie.

• Ingredients—4 pigeons.
• 1lb. of rump-steak.
• Yolks of 6 hard-boiled eggs.
• Pepper and salt.
• Some puff or other paste made with 1lb. of flour.

Method.—Prepare the pie-dish, and roll out the paste as for beef-steak pie.

Draw the pigeons, and cut them in halves.

Cut the steak into thin strips, the way of the grain.

Season the steak and pigeons nicely, and put them into the pie-dish with the hard-boiled yolks.

Pour in the water.

Cover with the paste, and finish like a beef-steak pie.

Wash and clean the legs of two of the pigeons, and stick them in the hole in the top of the pie.

Bake for about an hour and a half.

Veal-and-Ham Pie.

• Ingredients—1lb. of veal cutlet.
• ½lb. of ham.
• 4 hard-boiled eggs.
• 1 dessertspoonful of chopped parsley.
• 1 lemon.
• Pepper and salt.
• Some puff, flaky, or other pastry, made with 1lb. of flour.

Method.—Roll out the paste, and prepare the dish as for beef-steak pie. Cut the veal and ham into neat pieces.

Season them well, and sprinkle them with the parsley and lemon juice.

Put them into the pie-dish with the eggs cut in halves.

Pour in the water.

Cover with paste, and decorate like a beef-steak pie.

Bake for about two hours.

Cornish Pasties.

• Ingredients—Some plain short crust.
• Equal quantities of beef-steak or beef-skirt and potatoes.
• 1 onion, finely chopped.
• Pepper and salt.

Method.—Cut the meat and potatoes into small dice, and mix them with the onion, pepper, and salt.

Roll out the pastry.

Stamp it into rather large rounds with the lid of a small saucepan.

Wet round the edges of the paste, and place a small heap of meat and potatoes in the middle of each round.

Double the paste, bringing the edges to the top.

Goffer round them with the fingers to form a frill.

Place the pasties on a greased baking-sheet, and bake in a quick oven from half an hour to an hour.

Sausage Rolls.

• Ingredients—Some puff or flaky crust.
• Sausages.
• 1 egg.

Method.—Parboil the sausages.

Skin them, cut them in halves, and let them cool.

Roll out the paste; cut it into squares.

Brush the edges with beaten egg.

Lay a half sausage on each piece of paste, and roll the paste round it, pressing the edges together. Brush the rolls with beaten egg.

Lay them on a greased baking-sheet.

Bake in a quick oven for fifteen or twenty minutes.

Apple Tart.

• Ingredients—2lb. of apples.
• 3oz. of moist sugar.
• Some pastry.
• 5 cloves or the grated rind of a small lemon.
• ¼ pint of water.

Method.—Make some pastry according to directions given for short crust (the quantity made from ¾lb. of flour will be sufficient).

Roll out the paste in an oval shape to a quarter of an inch in thickness.

Invert a pint pie-dish, lay the paste over it, and cut it the size and shape of the under side of the dish.

Roll out the remaining pieces, and cut in strips about one inch wide.

Wet the edges of the pie-dish, and lay them evenly round it.

Peel, core, and quarter the apples.

Put them into the pie-dish, mixing them with the sugar.

Pile them up well in the middle of the dish, pressing them to an oval shape with the hands.

Pour in the water, and sprinkle over the lemon rind or cloves.

Wet the edges of the pastry, lining the dish, and put over the piece reserved for the cover.

Press the edges lightly together, and trim with a knife.

Make a small hole with a skewer on either side of the cover to let the steam escape. To glaze, brush over with the white of an egg, and dust with castor sugar.

Bake from half to three-quarters of an hour. The oven should be very quick at first, and moderate afterwards.

Genoise Pastry.

• Ingredients—6oz. of flour.
• 6oz. of butter.
• 8oz. of castor sugar.
• 7 eggs.

Method.—Melt the butter in a stewpan, and brush over a sautÉ pan or shallow cake tin with it.

Line the pan with paper, and brush that also with the melted butter.

Break the eggs into a basin.

Add to them the sugar, and beat with a whisk for about twenty minutes until they rise.

The basin containing them may be placed on a saucepan of hot water; but care must be taken that the heat is not too great, as that would cook the eggs.

When the eggs are sufficiently beaten, stir in the flour and butter very lightly.

If beaten in, the pastry will not be light.

Pour the mixture into the pan, and bake for about an hour.

Genoise Sandwiches.

• Ingredients—Genoise pastry.
• Jam.

Method.—Cut the Genoise pastry into slices.

Spread them with jam.

Lay the slices one on the other, and cut in triangular shapes.

Genoise iced-cakes.

• Ingredients—Genoise pastry.
• Jam.
• Grated cocoa-nut.
• Iceing.

Method.—Stamp out small cakes of Genoise pastry with a round cutter.

Spread the sides thinly with jam.

Roll the cakes in the cocoa-nut.

Ice round the top of the cakes, and put some jam in the middle of the iceing.

Genoise Preserve-cakes.

• Ingredients—Uncooked Genoise pastry.
• Some preserve.
• Some syrup of sugar and water.
• Hundreds and thousands.
• Chopped pistachio kernels.
• Grated cocoa-nut.

Method.—Partly fill small well-buttered dariol moulds with the Genoise mixture, and bake in a moderate oven.

When done, and sufficiently cool, cut a small circular piece from the bottom of the cakes.

Scoop out some of the inside, and fill them with the preserve.

Replace the small circular piece.

Brush the cakes over with the syrup, and roll them in the hundreds and thousands, chopped pistachio, and cocoa-nut.

They should be entirely covered with the decorations.

Pile them prettily on a dish, and decorate them with holly leaves.

Almond Cakes.

• Ingredients—Genoise pastry.
• Almonds.
• The white of 1 egg.
• 1oz. of castor sugar.

Method.—Stamp out the Genoise pastry into small cakes, with round cutters.

Beat the white of egg, mix it with the castor sugar, and spread it over the cakes.

Sprinkle them well with almonds, blanched and chopped.

Put them in a moderate oven to take a pale fawn colour.

Cheese Cakes.

• Ingredients—Some remains of puff pastry.
• 2oz. of sugar.
• 2oz. of butter.
• 1 lemon.
• Half a sponge cake.
• 1 whole egg and 1 yolk.

Method.—Cream the butter in a basin.

Add to it the castor sugar.

Beat well together, adding one by one the yolks of the eggs.

Then mix in the grated lemon peel, and the lemon juice and the sponge cake, rubbed through a wire sieve.

Lastly, stir in lightly half the white of the egg, beaten to a stiff froth.

Roll out the pastry.

Stamp into rounds with a fluted cutter dipped in hot water.

Lay the rounds in patty pans, and put a little dummy of dough or bread in the middle of each.

Bake them in a quick oven. When nearly cooked, remove the dummies and fill their places with the cheese-cake mixture.

Return them to the oven until the pastry is cooked and the cheese-cake mixture has taken a pale colour.

Tartlets.

• Ingredients—The remains of puff paste.
• Some preserve.

Method.—Roll out the paste, and stamp into rounds with a fluted cutter dipped in hot water.

Lay the rounds on patty pans.

Place in the middle of each a dummy, made of dough or bread.

Bake in a quick oven.

When the pastry is cooked remove the dummies, and fill the places with jam.

Plainer tartlets may be made with short, flaky, or other pastry.

Cheese d'Artois.

• Ingredients—Remains of puff paste, or some flaky crust.
• 1oz. of butter.
• 1 whole egg and 1 yolk.
• 2oz. of Parmesan cheese.
• A little cayenne.
• Pepper and salt.

Method.—Cream the butter well in a basin.

Beat in the eggs, and add the grated cheese.

Season with pepper, salt, and cayenne.

Divide the pastry into two portions, and roll them out as thinly as possible.

Lay one piece on a greased baking-sheet.

Spread it over with the cheese mixture, and lay the other on the top. Mark it with the back of a knife in strips, one inch wide and three inches long.

Brush over with beaten egg, and bake in a quick oven, until the paste is cooked. Cut out the strips with a sharp knife.

Dish them on a folded napkin, and sprinkle them with grated cheese.

Cheese Straws.

• Ingredients—2oz. of flour.
• 2oz. of butter.
• 2oz. of grated Parmesan cheese.
• The yolk of an egg.
• A little cayenne.
• Pepper and salt.

Method.—Rub the butter lightly into the flour.

Add the grated cheese and seasoning, and mix with the yolk of egg.

If necessary, add another yolk, but no water.

Roll out and cut into fingers about a quarter of an inch wide and two inches long.

Lay them on a greased baking-sheet.

Stamp out with a cutter, the size of an egg-cup, some rounds, and make them into rings by stamping out the middles with a smaller cutter.

Bake the rings and straws a pale fawn colour, and serve them with a bundle of straws placed in each ring.

Gooseberry Turnovers.

• Ingredients—Some gooseberries.
• Sugar.
• Short crust.

Method.—Pick off the heads and tails of the gooseberries.

Roll out the paste and cut into rather large rounds.

Wet the edges and put some gooseberries in the middle of each round, with a teaspoonful of sugar. Fold the paste over and press the edges together.

Decorate the edges with a fork or spoon.

Put the turnovers on a greased baking-sheet, and bake in a quick oven for fifteen minutes.

Petit Choux.

• Ingredients—5oz. of flour.
• 2oz. of butter.
• 3oz. of castor sugar.
• 3 whole eggs.
• ½ pint of water.

Method.—Rub the flour through a sieve.

Put the butter and water on to boil.

When boiling, stir in the flour and sugar.

Beat well over the fire, until the mixture leaves the sides of the saucepan, then remove the saucepan from the fire and beat in three eggs.

Shape like eggs, with two dessertspoons and a knife dipped in hot water.

Lay the pastry on a greased baking-sheet, and bake in a moderate oven for one hour.

To serve, open the cakes at the side and insert a little whipped cream or preserve.

Decorate by brushing them over with white of egg, or a syrup of sugar and water, and sprinkle with chopped pistachio kernels, grated cocoa-nut, or hundreds and thousands.

Apple Turnovers.

Make like gooseberry turnovers, substituting minced apple for gooseberries.

Apple Dumplings.

• Ingredients—1 dozen apples.
• 1lb. of short crust.
• A little moist sugar.

Method.—Pare the apples and remove the cores; fill the holes with sugar.

Take pieces of paste large enough to cover the apples. Do not roll them, but draw the paste over the apples.

Wet the edges to make them join.

Place the dumplings on a greased tin and bake for about three-quarters of an hour or one hour. The length of time will depend on the kind of apples used.