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Puff Paste (One heaping pound superfine)
One heaping pound superfine sifted flour, one of butter, which has first been folded in a napkin and gently pressed to remove all moisture; place the flour on board (or marble slab is better), make a well in center, squeeze in juice of half a lemon, and add yolk of one egg, beaten with a little ice-water; stir with one hand and drop in ice-water with the other, until the paste is as hard as the butter; roll paste out in a smooth square an inch thick, smooth sides with a rolling-pin, spread the butter over half the paste; lay the other half over like an old-fashioned turn-over, leave it for fifteen minutes in a cold place, then roll out in a long strip, keeping the edges smooth, and double it in three parts, as follows: Fold one-third over on the middle third, roll it down, then fold over the other outside third, roll out in a long strip and repeat the folding process-rolling across this time so that the butter may not run "in streaks" by being always rolled the same way; let it lie for fifteen minutes, and repeat this six times, allowing fifteen minutes between cach rolling to cool, otherwise the butter will "oil," and the paste is ready for
Handle as little as possible through the whole process. All the flour used must be of the very best quality, and thoroughly sifted. The quantity of water depends on the capacity of the flour to absorb it, which is quite variable. Too little makes the paste toug., and too much makes it thin, and prevents the flakiness so desirable. Rich paste requires a quick oven. This may be made in one-fourth the quantity given above, and is then much more easily handled. - Mrs. V. G. Hush, Minneapolis, Minn. use.
This is full puff paste in the classic French proportion — equal weights of flour and butter — with six turns. The instruction that governs everything is the temperature: butter and dough must stay the same firmness, and the moment the butter warms enough to smear rather than layer, the flakiness is gone.
- The quantities in cupsA heaping pound of sifted flour is roughly 3 1/2 to 4 cups; a pound of butter is four sticks. Weigh both if you can, since the whole method depends on the two masses matching in bulk and firmness.
- Make the quarter batchMrs. Hush's closing note is the most practical line in the recipe. Four ounces flour to four ounces butter (one stick) handles far more easily on a home counter and still gives a useful quantity of paste.
- "A quick oven"425–450F. Puff paste needs high heat so the water in the butter flashes to steam and lifts the layers before the fat can melt out; a moderate oven produces a greasy, dense sheet.
- Butter, then and nowThe napkin-pressing removes surface water from nineteenth-century farm butter. Use unsalted butter, and if you can find a European-style bar at 82–84 percent fat it will behave better than standard American butter at 80 percent.
- The lemon juice and egg yolkAcid is traditionally said to relax the gluten slightly so the dough stretches over the butter without tearing; the yolk adds a little fat and colour.
- Resting timesFifteen minutes in a genuinely cold larder is not fifteen minutes in a 72F kitchen. Refrigerate 30 minutes between turns, and if the butter ever feels soft through the dough, stop and chill it longer.
- Turns and directionSix turns after the initial enclosing fold is standard for full puff. Rotating the block a quarter turn each time, as she says, keeps the butter from running in streaks and gives even rise.
- Water is deliberately unmeasuredHer note about the flour's variable capacity is sound — figure roughly half the flour's weight in ice water and add the last of it a spoonful at a time. Aim for a dough as firm as the chilled butter, not a soft one.
- Yield and keepingThe full recipe makes roughly 2 1/2 lb of paste. It keeps tightly wrapped for two days in the refrigerator and freezes well; roll and cut cold, and chill the cut shapes again before they go into the oven.
- A scrambled lineThe sentence ending "the paste is ready for" and the stray "use." at the very end belong together — an artifact of the original typesetting, not a missing step.
Puff paste — pâte feuilletée — reached American kitchens largely through French professional cookery. Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping grew out of an Ohio compilation of the mid-1870s and appeared in expanded editions issued from Minneapolis, and it was built largely from contributed recipes; the signature of Mrs. V. G. Hush of Minneapolis is typical of how the book worked: a named woman vouching for a method in her own voice, complete with her warning that the butter will "oil" and her sensible advice to make a quarter batch. The insistence on "superfine" flour and a marble slab reflects real constraints of the period — household flour varied in strength and absorbency from sack to sack, and marble was among the few reliably cold work surfaces in a kitchen with no refrigeration beyond an icebox and a cellar.