To make good puff paste one must have all the ingredients cold. Use a marble slab if possible and avoid making the paste on a warm, damp day. It should be made in a cool place as it is necessary to keep the paste cold during the whole time of preparation. This recipe makes two pies or four crusts, and requires one-half pound of butter and one-half teaspoon of salt, one-half pound of flour and one-fourth to one-half cup of ice-water.

Cut off one-third of the butter and put the remaining two-thirds in a bowl of ice-water. Divide this into four equal parts; pat each into a thin sheet and set them away on ice. Mix and sift flour and salt; rub the reserved butter into it and make as stiff as possible with ice-water. Dust the slab with flour; turn the paste upon it; knead for one minute, then stand it on ice for five minutes. Roll the cold paste into a square sheet about one-third of an inch thick; place the cold batter in the centre and fold the paste over it, first from the sides and then the ends, keeping the shape square and folding so that the butter is completely covered and cannot escape through any cracks as it is rolled. Roll out to one-fourth inch thickness, keeping the square shape and folding as before, but without butter. Continue rolling and folding, enclosing a sheet of butter at every alternate folding until all four sheets are used. Then turn the folded side down and roll in one direction into a long narrow strip, keeping the edges as straight as possible. Fold the paste over, making three even layers. Then roll again and fold as before. Repeat the process until the dough has had six turns. Cut into the desired shapes and place on the ice for twenty minutes or longer before putting in the oven.

If during the making the paste sticks to the board or pin, remove it immediately and stand it on the ice until thoroughly chilled. Scrape the board clean; rub with a dry cloth and dust with fresh flour before trying again. Use as little flour as possible in rolling, but use enough to keep the paste dry. Roll with a light, even, long stroke in every direction, but never work the rolling-pin back and forth as that movement toughens the paste and breaks the bubbles of air.

The baking of puff paste is almost as important as the rolling, and the oven must be very hot, with the greatest heat at the bottom, so that the paste will rise before it browns. If the paste should begin to scorch, open the drafts at once and cool the temperature by placing a pan of ice-water in the oven.

FLEISCHIG PIE CRUST

For shortening; use drippings and mix with goose, duck or chicken fat. In the fall and winter, when poultry is plentiful and fat, save all drippings of poultry fat for pie-crust. If you have neither, use rendered beef fat.

Take one-half cup of shortening, one and one-half cups of flour. Sifted pastry flour is best. If you have none at hand take two tablespoons of flour off each cup after sifting; add a pinch of salt. With two knives cut the fat into the sifted flour until the shortening is in pieces as small as peas. Then pour in six or eight tablespoons of cold water; in summer use ice-water; work with the knife until well mixed (never use the hand). Flour a board or marble slab, roll the dough out thin, sprinkle with a little flour and put dabs of soft drippings here and there, fold the dough over and roll out thin again and spread with fat and sprinkle with flour, repeat this and then roll out not too thin and line a pie-plate with this dough. Always cut dough for lower crust a little larger than the upper dough and do not stretch the dough when lining pie-pan or plate.

If fruit is to be used for the filling, brush over top of the dough with white of egg slightly beaten, or sprinkle with one tablespoon of bread crumbs to prevent the dough from becoming soggy.

Put in the filling, brush over the edge of pastry with cold water, lay the second round of paste loosely over the filling; press the edges together lightly, and trim, if needed. Cut several slits in the top crust or prick it with a fork before putting it in place.

Bake from thirty-five to forty-five minutes until crust is a nice brown.

A gas stove is more satisfactory for baking pies than a coal stove as pies require the greatest heat at the bottom.

The recipe given above makes two crusts. Bake pies having a cooked filling in a quick oven and those with an uncooked filling in a moderate oven. Let pies cool upon plates on which they were made because slipping them onto cold plates develops moisture which always destroys the crispness of the lower crust.

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