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Short Paste Cake
Put a pound of fine flour into a basin; scoop out a hollow in the centre of it, and put into this ten ounces of fresh butter, a pinch of salt, a dessert-spoonful of powdered sugar, and a quarter of a pint of water. Work all together with the fingers, and when necessary add another quarter of a pint of water. To make a smooth, firm paste, gather this together into a lump, and leave it in a cool place for a couple of hours. Roll it out to an oblong shape, an inch and a quarter thick. Score the edges with a knife, and mark it on the top in any fanciful pattern. Brush over with beaten egg, and bake in a quick oven. Time to bake, about half an hour. Probable cost, 1s. Sufficient for three or four persons.
This is a rich shortcrust worked by hand and baked as a single thick slab rather than used as a lining. A few of the quantities and terms need translating before you start.
- Water: add the second measure only if you mustA quarter of a pint imperial is 5 fl oz, and that alone is generous for a pound of flour carrying 10 oz of butter. Treat the second quarter-pint as an outside limit, not an instruction — add it a spoonful at a time and stop the moment the dough gathers, or the paste will be slack and tough.
- Weights and small spoonsA pound of flour is roughly 3½ cups; 10 oz butter is 2½ sticks. A dessert-spoonful is 2 teaspoons, so the sugar here is a seasoning, not a sweetener.
- "Fine flour"Plain white flour, unbleached, with no raising agent. Self-raising flour will puff and crack the scored pattern.
- Keep everything coldFingers warm butter fast. Use firm butter and gather the paste together rather than over-work it. The two hours in a cool place will firm the butter and let the dough relax.
- Oven temperatureThe book gives no figure; a quick oven is usually reckoned at somewhere around 400–450F. For a slab an inch and a quarter thick, you might start at the hotter end for the first 10–12 minutes to set the surface, then drop to about 375F for the remainder, keeping within the half hour the recipe allows.
- Egg wash and scoringBeat the egg with a pinch of salt for a glossier finish, and cut the decorative pattern no more than a couple of millimetres deep — a deep score on a paste this thick will open into a crevice as it bakes.
- YieldThe book says three or four persons. Cut into small squares or wedges it will serve six to eight by modern portions, alongside fruit or cheese.
"Short paste" is the plain English name for what French kitchens call pâte brisée — flour, butter, salt and water, with the fat shortening the gluten strands so the baked crumb breaks rather than stretches. The same paste lines tarts, tops pies and, as here, bakes on its own as a thick scored slab. The scoring and egg wash are what distinguish the cake from the lining. The costing of a shilling, printed as a matter of course throughout the book, suggests it was written for households running to a budget rather than a chef's brigade.