Roll
pastry one-eighth inch thick, and cut pieces three and onehalf inches long by three inches wide. Put two teaspoons of mixture on each piece. Moisten edge with cold water halfway round, fold over, press edges together with three-tined fork, first dipped in flour. Bake twenty minutes in slow oven. 1 cup sweet milk 1 cup sour milk 1 cup sugar Yolks 4 eggs
The page as printed is a fragment: the opening words ("Roll pastry one-eighth inch thick") have lost their verb, and the ingredient list at the end belongs to a filling whose mixing and cooking directions are missing entirely. What survives is a workable method for small baked turnovers, but you will have to supply the custard from another recipe.
- What the ingredients are forThe cup each of sweet and sour milk, cup of sugar and four egg yolks are a filling, not the pastry. As given there is no thickener, no flavouring and no instruction, so it cannot be assembled from this text alone; treat it as a note of proportions rather than a recipe.
- Sweet milk and sour milk"Sweet milk" means plain fresh milk, specified only to distinguish it from the soured kind. "Sour milk" in this period was raw milk left to clabber; cultured buttermilk is the nearest modern equivalent. The text as printed lists no leavening, so what the acid was meant to do in the missing directions cannot be determined.
- Slow ovenNo figure is given; the term conventionally covers roughly 250-325F. Twenty minutes at the lower end sets a thin pastry and lightly colours it; if the filling is uncooked custard it will need longer, which is another sign the directions are incomplete.
- Rolling and cuttingAn eighth of an inch is thin — roll on a lightly floured surface and move the pieces on a bench scraper or wide spatula, since rectangles that size tear when lifted by hand. Cut all the pieces before filling any, so the scraps can be re-rolled while still cold.
- SealingOnly half the rim needs moistening because the other half is the fold itself, which has no edges to join. Press with a floured fork rather than a wet one; water on the tines drags the pastry.
- Two teaspoons is the limitThe piece is three and a half by three inches and holds very little once folded. Overfilling is the usual cause of failure here.