Flaky Crust
Ingredients.
Three-quarters of a pound of Flour.
Half a pound of Butter.
Salt. Put the flour and a little salt into a basin and mix to a stiff paste with about a gill of cold water. Put this on a paste-board and roll it out to a thin sheet. Divide the butter into three equal portions; take one portion and spread it over the paste with a knife, sprinkle a little flour over it, fold it in three, and roll it out; repeat this twice. When all the butter is rolled in, roll out the paste to the size required for a fruit tart or an open tart, and it is ready for use.
A classic three-fold rough puff, written for cooks who worked by feel. The proportions are sound; only the units and a few working conditions need translating.
- The hinge: keep everything coldThe layering depends on the butter staying solid in sheets rather than blending into the dough. Work on a cool surface, use butter that is pliable but chilled, and rest the paste in the refrigerator 20-30 minutes between rolls if it starts to feel greasy or slack.
- Weights and the gillThree-quarters of a pound of flour is 340g (about 2 3/4 cups); half a pound of butter is 225g (two US sticks). A gill is a quarter of an imperial pint, roughly 5 fl oz or a little over half a cup — add it gradually, as modern flours vary in absorption.
- "Stiff paste" means stiffThe initial dough, or détrempe, should be firm and only just cohesive, not soft. A slack base dough lets the butter squeeze out at the edges during rolling.
- Spreading versus enclosingDabbing the butter on in three instalments, as here, is one of the methods commonly given in English books and gives a rougher, very flaky crumb. Spread it over two-thirds of the sheet, leaving a clear margin at the edges, then fold in three and give the paste a quarter turn before each new roll.
- Flour on top of the butterThe sprinkle of flour over the spread butter is not optional dusting; it keeps the fold from sealing into a single mass and helps the layers separate in the oven.
- Baking, which the original omitsFlaky paste needs strong heat to set the layers before the butter melts through: start at 425-450F for the first 15 minutes, then drop to 375F to finish. A slow oven produces a heavy, sodden crust.
- YieldThis quantity should be enough for a large covered fruit tart, or roughly two open tarts of 8-9 inches, though the original speaks only of rolling out to the size required for one. Trimmings can be stacked, not balled up, and re-rolled once.
Flaky crust of this kind sits between shortcrust and true puff pastry — the layers come from butter added in stages and folded in, rather than from a single enclosed block worked through six turns. Cookery manuals of the "high class" sort, aimed at professional cooks and the better-run private kitchen, are often said to have given a graded series of pastries: short paste for everyday pies, this flaky or rough paste for fruit tarts and meat covers, and puff paste for vol-au-vents and patties. Cheaper household books are traditionally described as cutting the butter with lard, dripping or clarified beef fat, though how far either practice held is not something this page can settle.