PIES

PLAIN PASTRY FOR PIES

• 1 quart of flour.
• 1 cupful of butter.
• 1 cupful of cold water.
• 1 teaspoonful of salt.
• Or use one-half butter and one half lard or cottolene.

This quantity gives enough for three or four pies. Cottolene makes good pastry. The shortening may be mixed, but the flavor is better where butter alone is used. The richness of pastry depends upon the amount of shortening used.

Sift the salt and flour together, reserving a little flour for the board. With a knife, cut the butter into the flour. Add the water a little at a time, and mix it in lightly with the knife; turn it onto the board, and roll it twice—that is, after it is rolled out once, fold it together and roll it again. If the paste is wanted richer for the top crust, put bits of butter over the paste when rolled; fold and roll it again several times. Fold the paste, and put it in the ice-box for an hour before using, keeping it covered. In making pastry everything should be cold, the handling light, and the hands used as little as possible. Paste will keep several days in a cool place, but should be rolled in a napkin, so it will not dry and form a crust.

To Put a Pie Together.—Roll the paste one eighth inch thick, and a little larger than the tin. Dust the pan with flour; place the paste on it, letting it shrink all it will. Lift it from the sides to fit it into place, and press it as little as possible. Cut a narrow strip of paste, and lay around the edge; moisten it so it will stick. Brush the top of the bottom crust with white of egg, so the filling will not soak in and make it heavy. Put in the filling, and cover with another sheet of pastry. Moisten the top of the strip of pastry so the top crust will adhere to it; this gives three layers around the edge. Trim and press them lightly together. Cut several slits in the top crust to let the steam escape in cooking.

A thin piece of paste cut into fancy shape can be placed in the center for ornament if desired.

PASTRY FOR TARTS OR OPEN PIES

• 2 cupfuls of flour.
• ¾ cupful of butter.
• ½ teaspoonful of salt.
• 1 tablespoonful of sugar.
• Yolks of 2 eggs.
• Water.

Sift the flour, salt, and sugar together. Cut in the butter as directed above. Mix in the beaten yolks, then enough water to make a paste which is not very stiff; roll it two or three times, then wrap it in a cloth, or cover it closely, and put it in the ice-box for an hour. This gives enough paste for four small tart pies like those shown in illustration.

TART PIES

(APRICOT, PLUM, APPLE, BERRY)

Roll the paste one eighth of an inch thick, lay it on a deep pie-dish; let it shrink all it will, and use as little pressure as possible in fitting it to the tin. Cut the paste an inch larger than the dish, and fold it under, giving a high twisted edge. Prick the paste on the bottom in several places with a fork. Lay over it a thin paper, and fill the tart with rice, dried peas, beans, cornmeal, or any dry material convenient. Brush the edge with egg, and bake it in a moderate oven. When done remove the rice, or other filling, and the paper. Brush the bottom with white of egg. This will insure a dry under crust. If apricots or peaches are to be used, peel and cut them in halves, lay them evenly over the tart with the center side up.

Place the half of a blanched almond in each one to represent the pit. Put the juice of the fruit into a saucepan on the fire; if there is no juice use a cupful of water. Sweeten to taste, and when it boils add to each cupful of juice one teaspoonful of arrowroot dissolved in a little cold water, and let it cook until clear; then pour it around the fruit, but not over it, as the fruit should lie on top and show its form. Place in the oven only long enough to cook the fruit tender. If canned fruit is used, cook the juice and arrowroot until a little thickened and clear; then pour it around the fruit, and let cool. It will not need to be put in the oven.

When plums or cherries are used, remove the pits carefully, and place the fruit close together, with the whole side up. For apple tarts, cut the apples in even quarters or eighths; stew them in sweetened water, with a little lemon-juice added, until tender. Lay them overlapping in even rows or circles in the tart. To a cupful of water in which the apples were stewed add a teaspoonful of arrowroot, and cook until clear; pour it over the apples, sprinkle with sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon. With berries, the fruit may be stewed or not before being placed in the tart; then strips of paste are laid across it, like lattice-work, and the paste brushed with egg. Bake long enough to cook the fruit and the strips of paste. When cold place a fresh berry on each piece of crust where it crosses; or place a drop of meringue on the crusts, and the berries in the openings.

The California canned fruits, costing thirty-five cents, make very good pies. One can of fruit will make two pies. Tart-rings are better to use than pie-tins, as the sides are straight. Place them on a baking-sheet, or tin, before lining them with pastry.

ORANGE PIE

• Juice and grated yellow rind of 1 orange.
• ? cupful of milk.
• 3 eggs.
• 1 cupful of granulated sugar.
• 1 tablespoonful of flour.
• ½ saltspoonful of salt.

Beat the yolks and the sugar together; add the flour, the milk, and the grated rind and juice of the orange. Place it on the fire in a double boiler, and stir until it is a little thickened; then pour it into an open or tart pie, and bake thirty minutes. The crust of the pie should be brushed with white of egg before adding the thickened mixture. The tart crust may be first baked, as directed above, if preferred. Cover the top with meringue made with the whites of the eggs and sweetened with three tablespoonfuls of sugar. Pile it on irregularly, or press it through a pastry-bag into fancy shapes. Place it in the oven a moment to brown. A little more flour may be used if the pie is wanted more solid.

A PLAIN APPLE PIE

Fill a pie with apples sliced thin, using enough to make the pie at least an inch thick when done. Add a little water to the apples, and cover with a top crust which is a little richer than the under one. This is done by rolling out a part of the same paste, covering it with bits of butter, folding it together, and rolling it again, repeating the operation two or three times. Cut a few slits in the paste to let out the steam while cooking. Brush the top with beaten yolk of egg.

When the pie is baked, and while it is still hot, lift off carefully the top crust; add sugar, nutmeg, and a little butter, and mix them well with the apples. Replace the top crust, and dust it with powdered sugar. Apple pies seasoned in this way are better than when seasoned before being baked.

PUMPKIN PIE

Cut a pumpkin into small pieces; remove the soft part and seeds. Cover and cook it slowly in its own steam until tender; then remove the cover and reduce it almost to dryness, using care that it does not burn. Press it through a colander. To two and one half cupfuls of pulp add two cupfuls of milk, one teaspoonful each of salt, butter, cinnamon, and ginger, one tablespoonful of molasses, two eggs, and sugar to taste. Add the beaten eggs last and after the mixture is cold. Pour it into an open crust and bake slowly forty to fifty minutes. Squash pies are made in the same way, but are not the same in flavor, although they are often given the name of pumpkin pies.

MINCE PIE MIXTURE

• 3 pounds of lean boiled beef chopped fine, or half beef and half boiled tongue.
• 1½ pounds of suet chopped fine.
• 3 quarts of apples chopped not very fine.
• 1 quart of stoned raisins.
• 2 cupfuls of cleaned currants.
• ¼ pound of citron cut into thin slices.
• 1 cupful of candied orange and lemon peel shredded.
• 1 teaspoonful each of cloves, allspice and cinnamon.
• Grated zest and juice of two oranges and two lemons.
• 2 nutmegs grated.
• 1 tablespoonful of salt.
• 1 cupful of molasses.
• 3 cupfuls or sugar.
• 3 cupfuls of brandy.
• 1 cupful of sherry.
• 1 cupful of cider.

Mix the meat and suet together; then add all the dry ingredients and then the liquids. Pack in an earthen jar. It should stand several days before using, and will keep an indefinite time.

The pies should be made of good puff paste for the upper crust and tart paste for the under one, the edge having three layers as directed on page 451. The filling of mince meat should be one and a half inches thick. Paint the top crust with egg and trace with a pointed knife some simple design on it, cutting the paste very slightly. Bake for one hour and a quarter. Glaze the top by sifting a very little powdered sugar over it a few minutes before removing it from the oven.

CREAM PIE

• 3 eggs.
• 1 cupful of sugar.
• 1 teaspoonful of baking-powder.
• 1 cupful of flour.

Sift the flour and baking-powder together; beat the yolks and sugar together; add the flour and lastly the whipped whites of the eggs. Bake this cake mixture in two layers, and place between them when cold, and just before serving, a thick layer of whipped cream. Have the top piece covered with a boiled icing, or use between the cakes a cream filling made as follows:

CREAM FOR FILLING.

• 2½ cupfuls of milk.
• 2 tablespoonfuls of flour.
• ¾ cupful of sugar.
• 1 egg.
• 1 teaspoonful of vanilla.

Scald the milk; turn it onto the beaten egg; return it to the fire; add the flour moistened with a little milk, and the sugar, and stir until thickened. Let it cool before adding it to the cake. Serve with whipped cream if desired.

COCOANUT PIE

Line a tin basin which is two inches deep with pie paste, and bake it as directed for tart pies (page 452). Make a custard of one pint of milk, three egg-yolks, three tablespoonfuls of sugar, and two tablespoonfuls of corn-starch. Scald the milk and turn it onto the yolks and sugar beaten together; return it to the fire; add the corn-starch moistened with cold milk, and stir until well thickened; add one half teaspoonful of vanilla, and the whites of two eggs whipped to a froth; cook one minute to set the egg, then remove, and when nearly cold and stiffened stir in the half of a grated cocoanut. Brush the bottom of the baked pie-crust with white of egg; cover it with a thin layer of grated cocoanut and turn in the thickened custard. Cover the top with meringue made with the white of one egg. Return it to the oven one minute to color the meringue. Let the pie stand long enough to get firm and cold before serving. If the grated cocoanut is not added until the custard has stiffened, it will not sink to the bottom.

CRANBERRY PIE

Chop one cupful of cranberries and a half cupful of seeded raisins together into small pieces; add to them a cupful of sugar, a half cupful of water, a tablespoonful of flour, and a teaspoonful of vanilla. Bake with an upper and under crust. This resembles cherry pie.

WASHINGTON PIE

Make two round layer cakes, of sponge or of Genoese cake; spread between them a layer of pastry cream or of chocolate filling. Dust the top with powdered sugar in crossed lines to imitate strips of pastry.

Pastry Cream—Boil with a pint of milk or water five tablespoonfuls of sugar; add two tablespoonfuls of corn-starch, the yolks of five eggs, and a tablespoonful of butter; stir until thickened, add flavoring, and when partly cool spread it on the cake.

Chocolate Filling—Mix a half cupful of milk and a cupful of sugar, and stir until the sugar is dissolved; then add an ounce of shaved chocolate, and the beaten yolks of two eggs; stir until it is thickened; flavor with one half teaspoonful of vanilla, and let it partly cool before spreading it on the cake.

PUFF-PASTE

It is a mistake to consider the making of puff-paste too difficult for any but an experienced cook to undertake. No one need hesitate to attempt it, and if the few simple rules are strictly observed there will be success. The materials are few and inexpensive, and within the compass of the most moderate household. If light, good pastry can be substituted for the sodden crust of the ordinary pie, it will be found not only more palatable, but far more digestible and wholesome. Confections of puff-paste can be served on all occasions, and always make an acceptable dish, whereas ordinary pastry is excluded from any but the most informal service.

GENERAL RULES

The most important rule for making puff-paste, and the secret of success, is to have cold paste and a hot oven. It is well to have a marble slab to roll it on, but this is not positively essential. A warm, damp day should be avoided. The paste will keep on ice for a day or two before it is baked, and for several days in a dry place after it is baked, and if placed in the oven for a few moments just before serving, it will have the same crispness as when just baked. If there is no room colder than the kitchen to work in when mixing the paste, stand by an open window or in a current of air, for it is necessary to keep the paste cold during the whole time of preparing it. Use pastry flour if convenient (Plant’s St. Louis Flour). It can be obtained at all first-class grocers. It has a very fine grain, and can easily be distinguished from ordinary flour by rubbing a little between the thumb and forefinger.

RECEIPT FOR PUFF-PASTE

• ½ pound or 1 cupful of butter.
• ½ pound or 2 cupfuls of flour.
• ½ teaspoonful of salt.
• ¼ to ½ cupful of ice-water.

1st. Put the butter in a bowl of ice-water, and work it with the hand until it becomes smooth and flexible; then place it in a napkin and knead it a little to free it from moisture. Pat it into a flat square cake, and place it on the ice until ready to use.

2d. Sift the flour and salt together on a board or marble slab; reserve a little flour to be used for dusting the slab. Make a well in the center, and pour in a part of the water. Work in the flour, and use enough water to make a smooth paste. The exact amount of water cannot be given, as at certain times the flour absorbs more than at others. Gather in all the crumbs, and work the paste as you would bread dough until it becomes smooth. Roll it in a napkin, and place it on ice for fifteen minutes, that it may become thoroughly cold.

3d. Sprinkle the slab lightly with flour. Roll the cold paste into a square piece; place the cold butter in the center, and fold the paste over it, first from the sides and then the ends, keeping the shape square, and folding so the butter is completely incased, and cannot escape through the folds when rolled. This must be absolutely guarded against at all times, and can be prevented if the paste is rolled evenly and folded properly. Turn the folded side down, and with a rolling-pin roll it lightly away from you into a long, narrow strip, keeping it as even as possible. Fold it over, making three even layers of paste. This is called “giving it one turn”; then roll the folded strip again, and fold as before. This must be repeated until it has had six turns, which is as many as it should receive to give it its greatest lightness. After each turn, if it shows signs of softening, otherwise after each two turns, wrap the paste in a napkin, and place it in a pan, which should be placed between two other pans containing cracked ice, and let it remain there twenty to thirty minutes. Great care must be used in rolling the paste to keep the edges even, so that the layers will be even, and to roll lightly and always away from you, so as not to break the air-bubbles which give the lightness to the paste. The rolling is made easier by lightly pounding as well as rolling the paste. After each folding press the edges gently with the rolling-pin to shut in the air, and turn the paste so as to roll in a different direction. The paste should slip on the slab. If it does not, it sticks, and must be put on the ice at once. When it has had six turns cut it into the desired forms, and place again on the ice for twenty to thirty minutes before putting it in the oven. The trimmings, put together and rolled, make a good bottom crust for tart bands, or a top crust for mince pies.

The baking of puff-paste is as important a matter as the rolling. The oven must be very hot, with the greatest heat at the bottom, so the paste may rise before it begins to brown; therefore put it on the bottom of the oven and lay a paper on the shelf for a few minutes. Do not open the door for the first five minutes. It is essential to have the oven very hot. It must not, however, scorch the paste, and if it scorches open the draughts at once, and place a basin of ice-water in the oven to lower the temperature. The amount given in this receipt makes about six pÂtÉ shells or one vol-au-vent case.

PÂTÉ SHELLS

Roll puff-paste which has had six turns to a quarter-inch thickness; cut it into circles with a fluted or plain cutter two and a quarter inches in diameter. It should be icy-cold when cut, for if it sticks on one side it will not rise evenly. From one half the circles cut a hole in the center with a cutter one inch in diameter. Moisten the edges of the whole circles, and place on them the rings. Brush over the top with egg. (This is to glaze them, and the egg must not touch the edges.) Place them on the ice for half an hour, then bake in hot oven for twenty minutes. Bake the small circles cut from the center on a separate tin, as they do not require as much time; when baked pick out from the center any uncooked paste. Use the small pieces for covers after the cases are filled. If preferred, roll the paste one half inch thick, and with the small cutter cut half-way through the paste. When baked lift off the inner circle, and remove the uncooked paste from the interior.

TART BANDS

Make a good short paste, using the receipt for tart paste. Roll it one eighth inch thick, and cut it into a circle six inches in diameter, using a basin for guide. Wet the edges and lay around it a band of puff-paste cut in a strip one and one half inches wide and one quarter inch thick. Place the strip neatly and carefully around the edge, using care not to press it; cut the edges that are to join in a sharp diagonal line, and moisten them so they will adhere. Prick the bottom crust in many places with a fork to prevent its puffing up; brush the top of the band with egg, but do not let the egg touch the edges; let it rest on ice for half an hour, then bake in hot oven thirty to forty minutes.

When ready to serve fill it with jam, preserves, purÉe, or any other mixture used for tart pies.

These tarts are very good, and can be served where pies would not be admissible.

MILLEFEUILLES

Roll puff-paste turned six times to the thickness of one half inch; cut it with a pastry wheel into pieces three inches long and one inch wide. Brush the tops of the pieces with egg, and sprinkle them with sugar. Let them stand on ice one half hour, and then bake in a hot oven for twenty minutes, or until well browned; these are served in place of cakes. Or, cut the paste three and a half inches long and two inches wide, and when baked place two pieces together with a thin layer of apricot jam between them, and cover the top with meringue. These are served as a dessert dish for luncheon.

TARTLETS

Cut puff-paste into rings the same as for pÂtÉ shells. Use tart paste for the under crust. After they are baked fill the center with pineapple, with any preserves, or with apple purÉe covered with apricot jam.

PAGANINI TARTLETS

Roll puff-paste one eighth inch thick; cut it with a pastry wheel into squares of three and a half to four inches. Turn the points together in the middle, and press them down lightly. Bake; then put a spoonful of jam in the center of each, and cover the jam with meringue; place them in the oven a moment to brown.

TO GLAZE PASTRY

Take an egg and one tablespoonful of water, and beat the egg enough to break it, but not enough to make it froth. The yolk alone may be used with the water, but the white alone will not give it color. Brush it lightly over the pastry, using a brush or quill-feather, and dust it with a very little sugar. This will give a brown and polished surface to the pastry.

When two layers of pastry are to be stuck together, brush the top of one with water, and lay the other on it before baking them.

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