Ingredients
LEAF PASTE
a pound of butter, chilled
a pound of flour
water
PUFF PASTE
half a pound of butter
a pint of water
half a pound of flour
10 well-beaten eggs
Directions
LEAF PASTE
All French pastry is made upon a foundation of leaf paste.
To make this, drain a pound of butter and chill it with ice. Rub with a quarter of this a pound of flour, pouring in water enough to form a stiff paste.
Lay it away for a quarter of an hour.
Dredge the table lightly with flour, lay
the paste on it, and roll it square.
Similarly roll out the butter remaining, lay it in and on the centre of the paste, the edges of which should be brought back over the butter and enclose it well.
Roll the whole to the thickness of a quarter of an
inch and fold it into three layers. It has now had one turn.
Fold it again into three layers and roll it the second time, but in the contrary direction. It has now had two turns. Leave it for fifteen minutes and give it two turns more, and
after a second quarter of an hour give it the two final turns. More than six turns are unnecessary.
Cover the paste with cloth and lay it away in a cold place until needed.
PUFF PASTE
Leaf paste and puff paste are often confused, though greatly different. As leaf paste is the foundation for all French pastry, so puff paste serves for eclairs, cream puffs, and the like, a paste being required which will not, like the other, flake and crumble when handled.
To make puff paste, put half a pound of butter in a pint of water and bring them to a boil, adding half a pound of flour
and stirring until the mixture is smooth.
Remove It from the fire, add ten well beaten eggs, and
stir vigorously.
Notes
The recipe in this entry was taken from "Two Hundred Recipes for Making Desserts, Including French Pastries," by Olive M. Hulse. The cookbook was published by The Hopewell Press in 1912 in Chicago, U.S.A. For the complete copyright-free cookbook visit www.archive.org. Image: from The New York Public Library Digital Gallery..... |
