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German Paste
Take three-quarters of a pound of flour, put into it half pound of butter, the same of powdered sugar, and the peel of a lemon grated; make a hole in the middle of the flour, break in the yolks of two eggs, reserving the whites, which are to be well beaten; then mix well together. If the eggs to do not sufficiently moisten the paste, add half an eggshell of water. Mix all thoroughly, but do not handle too much. Roll out thin, and it may be used for all sorts of pastry. Before putting it into the oven, wash over the pastry with the white of the beaten egg and shake over a little powdered sugar.
A sweet German short pastry — Mürbeteig — written in the older style where "paste" means dough. The proportions are workable as given, but a few conventions need translating.
- The weightsThree-quarters of a pound of flour is about 340 g, or roughly 2 3/4 cups scooped and levelled. Half a pound each of butter and sugar is 225 g apiece, which is two American sticks of butter and about 2 cups of powdered sugar.
- Half an eggshell of waterA working cook's measure for a spoonful or two of liquid. Add it only if the dough refuses to come together; this is a rich paste and too much liquid makes it tough.
- "Powdered sugar"In books of this period the term usually means sugar pounded fine from a loaf — closer to today's caster or superfine sugar than to modern confectioners' sugar, which carries added cornstarch. Caster sugar gives the texture the recipe intends; confectioners' sugar works but yields a softer, more melting crust.
- Do not handle too muchThe hinge of the recipe, and the one line worth obeying literally. Bring it together with the fingertips or a few pulses of a food processor and stop; worked dough turns leathery and shrinks in the tin.
- Chill before rollingThe original does not call for it. With a warm room and warm hands, wrap the dough and rest it 30 to 60 minutes in the refrigerator, or it will tear as you roll it thin.
- OvenNo temperature is given. Tart shells and small pastries of this sort want a moderate oven, 350–375°F, until the edges are pale gold — 15 to 20 minutes for a blind-baked shell, 10 to 12 for small cut biscuits. The high sugar and butter mean it colours quickly at the end.
- The egg-white glazeThe reserved whites brushed on with a scatter of sugar bake to a thin crackled sheen. Use it sparingly and only on the top surfaces; pooled white on a rim will scorch before the pastry is done.
- YieldEnough for two 9-inch tart shells with trimmings, or about three dozen small cut biscuits. The dough keeps three days refrigerated and freezes well.
"Paste" was the ordinary English word for pastry dough well into the nineteenth century — puff paste, short paste, and here German paste, a name that answers roughly to the sweet, sandy, butter-and-egg-yolk pastry that German bakers call Mürbeteig and the French call pâte sucrée. The distinguishing marks are all present: yolks rather than whole eggs, sugar worked in with the butter rather than sprinkled after, and grated lemon peel, often said to have been a standard flavouring of German and Austrian baking long before vanilla extract became cheap. Its appearance in a bride's cook book is telling: the pastry is described, as here, as suitable "for all sorts of pastry," so a new householder could produce tarts, turnovers and small biscuits from a single lesson rather than several.