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Sweet Cheese Pastry
2/3 cup shortening 3 ozs. cream cheese 4 tablespoons sugar 2 cups flour Mix shortening and cheese together, add flour and sugar and mix well. Chill in the ice box over night. This will make 2 crusts.
A cream-cheese shortcrust with no liquid and no salt, mixed like a shortbread and rested overnight. It behaves more like a cookie dough than a pie crust, which changes how you roll and bake it.
- The hinge: keep it coldWith no water in the dough, the cream cheese and shortening are the only things holding it together, and both soften fast. The overnight chill is not optional, and if the dough goes slack while you roll, return it to the refrigerator for 20 minutes rather than adding flour.
- "Ice box" means the refrigerator"Ice box" -- depending on the household this meant either an ice-cooled cabinet or a mechanical refrigerator; either way an overnight chill is the point. In a modern refrigerator the dough will come out very firm, so let it stand 10-15 minutes before rolling.
- ShorteningIn a book of this period this means hydrogenated vegetable shortening or lard, not butter. Butter can be substituted one for one, but it has water in it and the dough will be softer and more prone to spreading.
- Cream cheeseUse full-fat block cream cheese, not the whipped or tub style, which carries extra water and gums. Three ounces is the small standard bar sold in some markets; otherwise weigh it off an 8 oz block.
- Add saltNone is listed, and shortening is unsalted. A quarter teaspoon stirred into the flour keeps the crust from tasting flat, particularly if it is going under fruit.
- Flour measureTwo cups scooped as written will run heavy by modern spoon-and-level habits. Aim for about 9 oz total; if the dough refuses to cohere when pressed, it is too dry rather than undermixed.
- BakingThe recipe gives no oven or time at all. If you want a pre-baked shell, blind-bake at 375F for 15-20 minutes, docked and weighted; the sugar means it browns sooner than a plain crust, so watch the edges.
- YieldTwo crusts, so one double-crust pie or two single 9-inch shells. The dough also patches well: press scraps in rather than rerolling.
- Other usesBecause it is sweet and tender, this dough is well suited to small turnovers, jam-filled rugelach-style rolls and tart shells baked in muffin tins, where the lack of gluten development is an advantage.
Cream-cheese pastry became common in American home baking once packaged cream cheese was widely available as a pantry item. The cheese supplies fat, acidity and just enough moisture to bind, so the cook skips the ice water and the anxious business of adding it drop by drop. The same sort of dough travels under many names in mid-century collections, from turnover pastry to the wrapper for Eastern European style filled cookies carried into American kitchens by immigrant bakers -- cheese-enriched doughs of this kind were long used by bakers in Central and Eastern Europe as well. A dough that must rest overnight suits a household with reliable cold storage.