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Short Pastry
1 pound Five Roses flour ½ pound shortening Ice-cold water Mix flour and shortening into dough with ice-cold water, using only enough to hold it together. It should be so dry that it will not stick to the bowl anywhere.
Turn out on board, and knead only enough to make the ball smooth. It is then ready to put into pie plates. The quantity of shortening is lessened for plainer pastry.
A pastry given by weight rather than volume, which is the most useful thing about it: the 2:1 flour-to-fat ratio scales to any quantity you like.
- The hinge is the waterAdd it a tablespoon at a time and stop the moment the dough coheres — the book's test, that it leaves the bowl clean and feels almost too dry, is exactly right. Expect somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 cup for this quantity, but the flour decides, not the measure.
- Weights in modern terms1 pound of flour is about 3 1/2 cups scooped and levelled, or 450 g; 1/2 pound of shortening is 225 g, roughly 1 cup of solid vegetable shortening or 2 sticks of butter.
- "Knead" does not mean kneadRead it as three or four quick presses to bring the ball together and smooth its surface. Working it any further develops gluten and gives a tough, shrinking crust.
- Five Roses flourA Canadian hard-wheat all-purpose flour, stronger than most American supermarket brands. A modern all-purpose flour works; if yours is bleached and soft, the pastry will be a little more tender and a little more fragile.
- Shortening then and nowIn this period the word meant lard, or the newer hydrogenated vegetable shortening. Both are near-100% fat, so they substitute weight for weight. Butter is about 16% water, so a butter crust made to this formula will need slightly less added liquid.
- TemperatureThe ice water is the only cold the recipe mentions, but the fat matters more. Chill the shortening and rest the finished dough 30 minutes before rolling so the fat stays in flakes rather than smearing.
- YieldClose to 1 3/4 lb of dough — enough for three or four single 9-inch shells, or one double-crust pie with pastry to spare.
- BakingNo oven heat is given. Blind-bake shells at 425F until set and pale gold, 12-15 minutes; filled double-crust pies generally start at 425F and drop to 375F.
- "Plainer pastry"The recipe only says the shortening is lessened; reducing it toward 1/3 pound per pound of flour gives a firmer, less rich crust that stands up to wet fillings and long baking.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Montreal and Keewatin, and like most milling-company cookbooks of its era it existed to sell flour: recipes were solicited from housewives across Canada, printed with the brand name written into the ingredient line, and distributed cheaply and very widely. It is given in pounds rather than cups, and offered as a ratio rather than a fixed formula — half a pound of shortening for rich pastry, less for plain. Hard spring wheat from the Canadian prairies, which the company milled, made a strong flour that punished overworking, which may be why the instruction to knead comes hedged with "only enough."