Preliminary Hints And Observations

As the heat of your oven must be regulated by what you intend to bake, the following rules should be carefully attended to. Light paste requires a moderate oven, but not too slow, as that will deprive it of the light appearance it should have; and too quick an oven will catch and burn it, without giving it time to rise. Tarts that are iced require a slow oven, or the icing will be brown before the paste is properly baked. Raised pies must have a quick oven, and be well closed up, or your pie will fall in the sides. It should have no water put in till just before you put it into the oven, as that will make the crust look sodden, and perhaps be the cause of the pie running, which will infallibly spoil it.

Different Kinds Of Pastes For Tarts, Pies, Etc

Crisp paste for tarts is made thus: Mix an ounce of loaf sugar, beat and sifted, with a pound of fine flour, and make it into a stiff paste with a gill of boiling cream. Work three ounces of butter into it, roll it very thin, and having made the tarts, beat the white of an egg a little, and rub it over them with a feather, and bake them as above directed.

Icing For Tarts

Beat the white of an egg to strong froth, and put in, by degrees, four ounces of double-refined sugar, with as much gum as will lie on sixpence, beat and sifted fine. Beat them half an hour, and then lay it thin on the tarts.

Puff Paste

Rub a pound of butter very fine into a quarter of a peck of flour. Make it up into a light paste with cold water, just stiff enough to work it. Then roll it out about the thickness of a crown piece, and put a layer of butter all over. Sprinkle on a little flour, double it up, and roll it out again. Double it and roll it out seven or eight times, when it will be fit for all sorts of pies and tarts that require a puff paste.

Or, beat the white of an egg to a strong froth, and mix it with as much water as will make three quarters of a pound of flour into a tolerably stiff paste. Roll it out vet) thin, lay the third part of a half pound of butter in thin pieces, and dredge it with a little more flour. Roll it up tight then roll it out again, and continue to do so until half a pound of butter a:.d flour is used. Cut it in square pieces, .and make the tarts. This will require a quicker oven than for your crisp paste.

Paste For Custards

PouR half a pound of boiling butter on two pounds of flour, with as much water as will make it into a good paste. Work it well, and when it has cooled a little, raise the custards, put a paper round the inside of them, and when they are half baked, fill them.

In making any kind of dripping-paste, boil it four or five minutes in a good quantity of water, to take the strength off it.

Cold Crust With Suet

Shred the suet fine, pour part of it into the flour, then make it into a paste, and roll it out as before, with this difference, make use of suet instead of butter.