Classic Puff Paste For Pies

Ingredients:

4 cups of pastry flour
2 cups of butter
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1-1/4 cups of ice-water.


Preparation:

  • Wash the hands with soap and water and dip them first in very hot and then in cold water.
  • Rinse a large bowl or pan with boiling water and then with cold. Half fill it with cold water. Wash the butter in this, working it with the hands until it is light and waxy. This frees it from the salt and buttermilk and lightens it, so that the pastry is more delicate.
  • Shape the butter into two thin cakes and put in a pan of ice-water to harden.
  • Mix the salt and sugar with the flour. With the hands, rub one-third of the butter into the flour.
  • Add the water, stirring with a knife. Stir quickly and vigorously until the paste is a smooth ball.
  • Sprinkle the board lightly with flour. Turn the paste on this and pound quickly and lightly with the rolling-pin. Do not break the paste.
  • Roll from you and to one side; or if easier to roll from you all the time, turn the paste around. When it is about one-fourth of an inch thick, wipe the remaining butter, break it in bits and spread these on the paste. Sprinkle lightly with flour.
  • Fold the paste, one-third from each side, so that the edges meet. Now fold from the ends, but do not have these meet. Double the paste, pound lightly and roll down to about one-third of an inch in thickness. Fold as before and roll down again.
NOTE: The less flour you use in rolling out the paste, the tenderer it will be. No matter how carefully every part of the work may be done, the paste will not be good if much flour is used.


Real Cooking
Did You Know?
Bake pies having a cooked filling in a hot 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.

Indigestion is almost sure to result from heavy, soggy, imperfectly baked pastry, because the quantities of fat it contains may be slow to digest and much of the starchy material may be imperfectly cooked. Consequently, it is often not the pie itself but the way in which it is made that is responsible for the bad reputation that this very attractive dessert has acquired. If the correct method of making pastry and pies is followed and the ingredients are handled properly in the making, the digestibility of the finished product will not be the problem.