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To make a short crust
Put six ounces of butter to eight ounces of flour, and work them well together; then mix it up with as little water as possible, so as to have it a stiffish paste; then roll it out thin for use.
A very rich shortcrust by modern standards, and the terse instructions assume a cook who already knows what pastry should feel like. The whole recipe hinges on keeping things cold and handling them briefly.
- The measurementsSix ounces butter to eight ounces flour is 170 g to 225 g, or about 12 tablespoons butter to a scant 2 cups flour. Modern shortcrust usually runs half as much fat as flour, so this is noticeably richer and shorter.
- "Work them well together"This means rubbing the butter into the flour until it resembles coarse crumbs, not creaming or beating. Once water goes in, stop as soon as the dough coheres; further working develops gluten and the crust turns tough rather than short.
- Cold butter, cold waterThe original says nothing about temperature. Use butter straight from the refrigerator and ice water, and chill the dough at least 30 minutes before rolling.
- "As little water as possible"Expect roughly 2 to 3 tablespoons, added a spoonful at a time. Flour hydration varies, so judge by feel: the dough should just hold when pressed, not look damp.
- Salt and sugarMuch butter of this period was salted for keeping, which may be why no salt is called for. With unsalted butter add about 1/4 teaspoon. For sweet tarts, a tablespoon of sugar rubbed in with the flour will not harm the texture, though this recipe does not call for it.
- YieldEnough to line one 9-inch pie or tart shell, or a thin top and bottom if rolled very fine. Roll thin, as directed; a rich paste this short does not need thickness to taste of butter.
- BakingNo oven is given. Blind-bake tart shells at 400F until set and pale gold, then fill; filled pies bake at 375-400F. Watch it, as the high proportion of butter browns faster than a leaner crust.
Short crusts of this kind sit at one end of a spectrum of English pastry that ran from the stiff "coffin" paste used chiefly as a baking vessel for meat pies, through raised hot-water crusts, to the puff and short pastes made for tarts and sweetmeats. "Short" refers to fat interrupting the flour's gluten so the baked crust crumbles instead of stretching; the word is used of friable pastry in English writing well before this book. Recipes of this era often give a ratio and a texture cue rather than method or timing, and collections of the kind frequently print more than one crust together, leaving the cook to choose.