Puff-Paste
1/2 pound butter 1/2 pound flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 to 1/2 cup ice-water The secret of making good puff-paste is to have all the ingredients cold. Use a marble slab if possible and avoid making the paste on a warm, damp day. It should be made in a cool place, as it is necessary to keep the paste cold during the whole time of preparation. The recipe makes two pies or four crusts. Cut off one third of the butter and put the remaining two thirds in a bowl of ice-water. Divide this into four equal parts; pat each into a thin sheet and set them away on ice. Mix and sift the flour and salt; rub the reserved butter into it and make as stiff as possible with ice-water. Dust the slab with flour; turn the paste upon it; knead for one minute; then stand on ice for five minutes. Roll the cold paste into a rectangular sheet about one third of an inch thick; place the cold butter in the center and fold the paste over it, first from the sides and then the ends, keeping the shape square and folding so that the butter is completely encased and cannot escape through any cracks as it is rolled. Roll out to one fourth inch thickness, keeping the rectangular shape and folding as before, but without butter. Continue rolling and folding, enclosing a sheet of butter at every alternate folding until all four sheets are used. Then turn the folded side down and roll in one direction into a long narrow strip, keeping the edges as straight as possible. Fold the paste over, making three even layers. Then roll again and fold as before. Repeat the process until the dough has had six turns. Cut into the desired shapes and place on the ice for twenty minutes or longer before putting in the oven. If during the making the paste sticks to the board or pin, remove it immediately and stand on the ice until thoroughly chilled. Scrape the board clean; rub with a dry cloth and dust with fresh flour before trying again. Use as little flour as possible in rolling, but use enough to keep the paste dry. Roll with a light, even, long stroke in every direction, but never work the rolling pin back and forth as that movement toughens the paste and breaks the bubbles of air.
The baking of puff-paste is almost as important as the rolling, and the oven must be very hot, with the greatest heat at the bottom, so that the paste will rise before it browns. If the paste should begin to scorch, open the draughts at once and cool the temperature by placing a pan of ice-water in the oven.
A classic four-butter-sheet puff paste, written for a coal range and a marble slab. Nothing here is unsafe, but almost everything depends on temperature control that a modern kitchen handles differently.
- The hinge: cold, and no back-and-forth rollingMost failures of puff paste come down to warm butter or crushed layers. Roll with long single strokes away from you, lift and turn the dough rather than sawing the pin over it, and return the whole thing to the refrigerator the moment the butter softens or the surface looks greasy.
- Weights in cupsHalf a pound of butter is 227 g, or two American sticks. Half a pound of flour is also 227 g, which is roughly 1 3/4 to 2 cups scooped and levelled — weigh it if you can, since this dough wants a precise flour-to-fat ratio of 1:1.
- Ice-water quantityThe range of 1/4 to 1/2 cup allows for differences between flours. Add the smaller amount, then dribble in more until the dough just holds together as a stiff mass.
- "Stand on ice"Read this as the refrigerator; the recipe's five-minute rest will want longer, perhaps 15-20 minutes, in a modern fridge. The freezer works for a 5-10 minute emergency firming.
- Marble is optionalA chilled granite or stone countertop does the same job. A wooden board or plastic mat works if you refrigerate the dough more often; the point is a surface that pulls heat out of the butter rather than putting it in.
- "Very hot" oven450-475F. Preheat fully and bake on a rack in the lower third with a preheated sheet or stone beneath, which is the closest you will get to "the greatest heat at the bottom" of a range with a firebox under the oven floor.
- ScorchingIgnore the pan of ice-water — it steams and softens the pastry. Drop the oven to 375-400F once the paste has risen, and tent lightly with foil if the tops colour before the layers set.
- YieldThe recipe says two pies or four crusts. Raw paste freezes well, wrapped tight, for a couple of months.
Puff paste — pâte feuilletée — reached American household books through French professional pastry, and the method described here encloses successive sheets of butter rather than one large block; modern bakers almost always use a single butter block and more turns. The detailed fussing over damp weather, marble slabs and draughts is a reminder that the cook was managing a coal or wood range with dampers rather than a thermostat, and that the icebox was a box of ice — which is exactly why the recipe keeps sending the dough back to it.