Puff Paste
One pint flour, yolk of one egg, one-half tablespoon butter, a little water, just enough to mix, knead a little, roll out and fold; leave in a cool place from three to six hours; unfold, add six ounces of butter in middle of paste, fold and roll gently one way; fold again, repeating the folding six times. Now a little flour in the places that stick, keep in a cool place from fifteen to twenty-four hours before using, wrapping in a floured towel. SUPPER.
A compact laminated dough recipe of the kind that assumes the reader already knows what puff paste should look like. The proportions are sound; the instructions are terse, and the long rests are the whole method.
- Keep everything coldThis is the hinge. The butter must stay firm enough to stay in sheets rather than blending into the flour — if it softens and smears, the layers merge and the paste rises poorly. Work on a cool surface, and return the dough to the refrigerator whenever it begins to feel slack.
- A pint of flourFlour was measured by volume, so a pint means 2 cups, roughly 8 to 9 oz by weight. Use plain all-purpose flour; bread flour gives a tougher, chewier paste than the period intended.
- "A little water, just enough to mix"Expect somewhere near 1/3 to 1/2 cup of ice water for this quantity of flour, added gradually. The dough should be cohesive and slightly tacky, not smooth or elastic — heavy kneading develops gluten and fights the rise.
- Six ounces of butterThat is a stick and a half, blocked out into a flat square and enclosed by the dough. Unsalted butter is the modern default; if using salted, leave out any additional salt. Butter with a lower water content laminates more cleanly.
- "Roll gently one way"Not a stylistic flourish. Rolling in a single direction lengthens the layers evenly; rolling crosswise squeezes and tears them. Turn the dough a quarter turn between folds, then roll the long way again.
- Six foldsSix turns is standard for full puff paste; the resulting layer count depends on whether each fold is in three or in half, which the recipe does not say. Rest the dough in the cold between turns, not just at the start, or the last folds will be a struggle.
- The restsThree to six hours for the initial dough and fifteen to twenty-four hours before use are both generous by modern habit but not wrong — a long cold rest relaxes the gluten and firms the butter. Thirty minutes between turns and an hour before rolling out will serve if time is short. Wrap in plastic rather than a floured towel, which dries the surface.
- Oven heatThe recipe covers only the making of the paste and gives no baking instruction at all. Puff paste needs a hot oven, around 425 to 450F, so the trapped water flashes to steam and lifts the layers before the butter melts out. A slow oven produces a greasy, flat result.
- YieldEnough for one large tart shell, a dozen or so small patty cases, or the lid of a substantial pie. The paste freezes well after the final fold.
Puff paste, or pâte feuilletée, reached English and American kitchens through French practice, and by the late nineteenth century it was associated with the ambitious household cook: no leavening, and — apart from the single yolk here — no eggs, just flour, butter, water and patience. The long cold rests point to a kitchen without mechanical refrigeration, relying on a cool larder, pantry shelf or cellar, which may be why the timings are given as ranges; the instruction to keep the paste cool is certainly repeated twice in a few lines. The egg yolk is a touch generally absent from later French-influenced versions. The stray word "SUPPER" at the end appears to be a sectional heading or compiler's tag from the book's arrangement rather than part of the recipe.