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Crust, Good
Mix two table-spoonfuls of sifted sugar and a pinch of salt in a pound of flour, rub into it six ounces of butter, and mix the whole lightly together with a fork by adding the yolks of two eggs and sufficient water to work it into a smooth paste. Time, twenty minutes to prepare. Probable cost, 1s. per pound.
This is a sweet shortcrust — what a Victorian kitchen would reach for when lining a tart or covering a fruit pie. The recipe gives proportions and nothing else, so the handling is left to the cook.
- The hinge: keep it cold and handle it littleThe fork is specified for a reason — warm hands melt the butter into the flour and the crust bakes tough rather than short. Work quickly, use cold butter and cold water, and stop mixing the moment the paste coheres.
- The measuresA pound of flour is about 450 g, roughly 3 1/2 cups; six ounces of butter is 170 g, or one and a half US sticks. That is a fairly lean short pastry by modern standards, where half fat to flour is common.
- "Sifted sugar"In Victorian usage this means sugar passed through a sieve to break lumps — caster or superfine sugar is the modern equivalent. Two tablespoons is enough to sweeten and to help the crust colour, not to make it a biscuit dough.
- The water is deliberately unmeasuredTwo egg yolks already bring liquid, and flour absorbency varies. Add water a tablespoon at a time, stopping as soon as the paste coheres; the amount needed will vary with the flour.
- Rest before rollingThe original says twenty minutes to prepare and stops there. Wrap the paste and chill it for at least half an hour before rolling; an unrested paste is more likely to shrink in the tin.
- Oven, since none is givenSweet shortcrust of this kind bakes at around 400F (200C), dropping to 350F (175C) if the filling needs longer. Blind-bake a lined case with weights for about 15 minutes before removing the paper.
- YieldA pound of flour makes roughly enough for two 9-inch tart cases, or one deep double-crust pie. Half quantities work perfectly well.
- The costing"1s. per pound" is a household budgeting note rather than an instruction; the recipe does not say whether the pound is of flour or of finished paste.
Cassell's is arranged as a dictionary, and a page like this belongs to a family of basic pastes — puff, flaky, short, suet, dripping — that a Victorian cook was expected to know by proportion rather than by recipe card. "Good crust" here appears to mean good in the sense of rich: enriched with butter, sugar and yolks, as distinct from the plainer water-and-dripping crusts used for meat pies. The inclusion of a probable cost per pound is typical of the period's cookery dictionaries, which were as much housekeeping manuals as recipe books and expected the mistress of the house to check her cook's expenditure.