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Crust, Pate Brisee
Pate Brisee, the short, crisp crust which is so much used by the French for pies, is made by working the butter, lard, or suet thoroughly into the flour, which must be very dry, before it is moistened; six ounces of butter, a pinch of salt, and a small cupful of water may be allowed for every pound of flour, and if it is to be used for raised pies, it must be made rather stiff. Time to prepare, twenty minutes. Probable cost, 6d. per pound.
A bare-bones pastry formula of the kind Victorian cookery dictionaries printed as a reference point rather than a working recipe. The proportions are sound, but the method assumes you already know how pastry behaves.
- The hinge: fat in first, water lastThe whole point of the instruction is that every particle of flour is coated with fat before any liquid arrives, which limits gluten development and keeps the crust short. Rub or cut the fat in until the mixture looks like coarse meal, then add water in stages and stop the moment it coheres.
- The proportions in gramsOne pound of flour is about 450 g, six ounces of butter about 170 g. That is a fat-to-flour ratio of roughly 3:8 — leaner than most modern pâte brisée, which runs closer to 1:2. Expect a firm, workable dough rather than a rich crumbly one.
- "A small cupful of water" is not a fixed quantityNineteenth-century cups were not standardised, and flour absorbency varies anyway. Reckon on 100–130 ml for a pound of flour and add it a spoonful at a time; the dough should just hold together when pressed, not feel damp.
- Very dry flourPeriod cookery books routinely tell the cook to dry or air flour, which could take up damp in storage. Modern bagged flour needs no drying, but the underlying point stands: any extra moisture in the flour means less water in the mix.
- Keep everything coldThe recipe says nothing about temperature. Chilled butter, cold water and a rest of at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator before rolling will do more for the result than anything else here.
- Lard and suetLard gives a notably crisper, more short crust than butter and is still easy to buy. Shredded suet is a coarser fat and behaves differently — it suits raised and savoury pies rather than delicate tart shells.
- "Rather stiff" for raised piesA raised pie crust must stand up unsupported while it is hand-moulded, so it is made drier and worked more, not less. Note that the classic English raised-pie paste is a hot-water crust with the fat melted into boiling liquid; a stiffened pâte brisée is a French alternative, not the same thing.
- YieldA pound of flour with this much fat makes roughly 700 g of pastry — enough to line and lid a 23 cm double-crust pie, or to line two tart tins.
- CostSixpence a pound; the entry is essentially telling a cook what pastry ought to cost her to make.
Pâte brisée means literally "broken paste"; the name is usually explained by the crumbly, fractured texture that comes of coating the flour in fat before wetting it, as opposed to the layered pâte feuilletée built by folding butter between sheets of dough. By the late nineteenth century the English household manual had absorbed a good deal of French terminology and technique, and a cook was expected to know the difference between short paste, puff paste and raised-pie paste as a matter of basic vocabulary. The costing in pence per pound is a reminder of what such books were also for — budgeting as much as inspiration.