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Paste
Three cups of flour (sifted), one large cup butter, one-half teaspoon baking powder, two tablespoons sugar, one-half cup milk. Sift flour with powder and sugar, rub in butter, add milk; mix into a smooth dough of medium stiffness.
A short-crust pie paste with an unusually rich butter ratio and a token amount of baking powder. The original assumes you know what to do with it once mixed, so the handling matters more than the list.
- Keep everything coldThe hinge of any butter paste is temperature. Butter at refrigerator firmness rubbed into flour leaves flakes that steam apart in the oven; butter that has softened to the texture of the flour gives a short, sandy crust instead. Chill the dough at least 30 minutes before rolling.
- "One large cup butter"A cup of butter is 8 oz / two sticks; "large" suggests the cook meant a generous, heaped measure, so read it as 8 to 9 oz. Against three cups of flour that is a very rich paste, close to a modern all-butter crust at the top of the fat range.
- Flour measureThree cups of sifted flour is roughly 12 oz / 340 g. The recipe's parenthetical '(sifted)' leaves it unclear whether to sift before or after measuring; scooping unsifted flour will add an ounce or more and give a dry, cracking dough.
- Milk rather than ice waterMilk gives a more tender, more browned crust than water because of its fat, sugar and protein. Use it cold. Half a cup may be more than the flour will take on a humid day; add it in stages and stop when the dough coheres.
- The baking powderHalf a teaspoon in three cups is a light lift, and small amounts of baking powder do turn up in American home pastry of this period. It is optional by modern practice; leaving it out tends to give a crisper, flakier result.
- "Medium stiffness"The dough should just hold together when pressed, not be smooth and elastic like bread dough. Mix only until it comes together -- extra kneading develops gluten and toughens the crust.
- Yield and bakingThis should make enough for about two 9-inch crusts, or one double-crust pie. The recipe gives no baking directions; by modern practice a blind-baked shell goes at 400F for about 15 minutes with weights, then 10 more without, and a filled double-crust pie often starts at 425F for 15 minutes and finishes at 350F.
Pastry chapters in household cookbooks of this period commonly begin with a plain paste like this one before moving on to puff paste, tarts and fillings. Milk in place of ice water reads as a home-kitchen touch rather than a professional one. Chemical leavening was cheap and widely available by then, and small amounts of baking powder turn up in a range of doughs.