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Lard and Butter Pastry
Rub a pound of lard into two pounds of flour, and roll it out. Roll out half a pound of butter on the board, and dredge a little flour upon it. Lift the floured butter on the pastry, fold them up together, and roll out once. Pastry is better when made in a cool place, and should be rolled out, if convenient, on a marble slab. Time, a quarter of an hour to prepare. Probable cost, 1s. 10d. for this quantity.
A rough-puff in the Victorian style: lard rubbed in for shortness, butter laid on in a sheet for flake. The instructions assume a good deal of knowledge the modern cook may not have.
- The liquid is missingAs written there is nothing to bind the flour and lard into a dough. Cassell's assumed the cook knew to add ice-cold water, a little at a time, until the mass just coheres. Add no more than it takes; a wet paste toughens.
- Scale it downTwo pounds of flour, one pound of lard and half a pound of butter comes to about 3 1/2 lb of ingredients before the water, enough for four or so large pies. Quartered (8 oz flour, 4 oz lard, 2 oz butter) gives a single double-crust pie.
- Everything coldThis is the hinge. The lard and butter must stay solid and distinct in the dough; once they melt into the flour you get shortcrust, not layers. The advice about a cool place and a marble slab is not decoration — chill the fats, the water and, if the kitchen is warm, the flour.
- One turn is not enoughA single roll after the butter goes on gives very few layers. Modern rough-puff practice is three or four turns, chilling 20-30 minutes between each, folding in thirds. The stated quarter of an hour covers active work only.
- FlourVictorian household flour was generally softer than modern bread flour. Use plain or all-purpose; strong flour will fight the rolling and shrink in the tin.
- LardBuy leaf lard or a good rendered pig fat rather than the shelf-stable hydrogenated block, which behaves differently and tastes of little. Vegetable shortening substitutes at the same weight but gives a flatter flavour.
- BakingNo oven is specified. Pastry of this kind wants a hot start — 425F for the first 15 minutes to set and lift the layers, then down to 350-375F to cook through.
- That price1s 10d is one shilling and tenpence, pre-decimal sterling, for the whole 3 1/2 lb. Cassell's costed nearly every recipe so a housekeeper could budget the week.
Cassell's belongs to the great age of the English household dictionary, when a kitchen manual was expected to price its output as carefully as it measured it. The lard-and-butter combination is a thrift compromise: lard was cheap, plentiful and made excellent short pastry, while butter carried the flavour and, laid on in a sheet, the flake. All-butter puff is often said to have been the confectioner's and the professional's business, with the domestic cook stretching it. The insistence on a marble slab reflects kitchens without refrigeration, where a cold stone surface was one way to keep fat firm through the rolling. It draws heat out faster than wood, and pastry cooks prized it well into the twentieth century for exactly that reason.