Pastry, cakes, and sweets generally are wonderfully improved by being cooked in paper bags. The concentration of heat which is thus gained has the effect of making puff paste lighter and more regular in texture, and all cake mixtures "rise" in a manner that the open oven cannot produce.

Then again, the cooking takes much less time, and I need not point out the value of this. In the old style the oven door had frequently to be opened to watch the progress. The pastry was thus exposed to draughts of cool air, which could not but produce "doughy," heavy and unsatisfactory results.