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Paste, Short, for Tarts and Fruit Pies
Put a pound of dried and sifted flour into a bowl, and mix with it half a tea-spoonful of salt and a table-spoonful of powdered sugar. Rub half a pound of butter, or butter and lard, into the flour, and make it into a paste by stirring in rather more than a quarter of a pint of water or milk: the yolks of two eggs may be added or not. Roll the paste out once only; handle it lightly, and use it as required. Probable cost, 10d. per pound.
A plain English shortcrust in the standard half-fat-to-flour ratio, written for cooks who measured by the pound and worked in a cold larder. Only the units and a missing oven temperature need translating.
- Quantities in metricA pound of flour is about 450 g (roughly 3½ cups scooped and levelled); half a pound of butter is 225 g. The flour, fat and liquid together come to something under 2 lb of paste, enough for two 9-inch tart shells or one double-crust fruit pie.
- The quarter pintThis is an imperial pint of 20 fl oz, so a quarter pint is 5 fl oz, about 150 ml, and "rather more" means a spoonful or two beyond that. Add it gradually — modern flours vary in absorbency and you may need less.
- "Dried and sifted" flourPeriod cookery books commonly told cooks to dry flour before use, flour being liable to take up damp in storage. Bagged flour today needs no drying; sift it only to aerate.
- Butter and lardThe half-and-half mix is worth keeping: lard gives flakiness and butter gives flavour. Modern block lard or shortening works; both fats must be cold and firm, not softened.
- The hinge: roll out once onlyThis is the whole instruction. Every extra pass develops gluten and melts the fat, and the pastry turns tough and shrinks in the tin. Work quickly, keep hands and fats cold, and stop as soon as the dough coheres.
- The optional yolksTwo yolks make a richer, sturdier paste that browns faster. Leave them out for a lighter crust over juicy fruit.
- RestingThe original says nothing about it. Wrap and chill 30 minutes before rolling so the gluten relaxes and the fat firms.
- OvenNo temperature is given. Fruit pies and tarts of this kind want a hot oven, 400–425°F (200–220°C), dropping to 350°F (180°C) once the crust has set if the filling needs longer.
- The cost noteTenpence per pound is pre-decimal currency, a period price reference rather than anything to act on.
"Short" in pastry means exactly what it means in "shortening": fat coating the flour particles so they cannot form long gluten strands, leaving a crumb that snaps rather than stretches. The half-fat-to-flour proportion here is the classic English shortcrust, distinguished in Victorian kitchens from the lighter, labour-intensive puff paste and from the tougher hot-water crust used for raised meat pies. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery, an enormous alphabetical household reference of the later nineteenth century, gives several pastes side by side so a cook could choose by purpose, and this one is filed under the everyday work of tarts and fruit pies. The optional yolks and the spoonful of sugar mark it as a sweet-pie crust rather than a savoury one; the alternative of "butter, or butter and lard" reflects a period when lard was cheap and butter was not, and the mix was as much economy as technique.