Puff Paste

This entry is concerned entirely with conditions and preparation rather than proportions: the temperature of the room and the state of the butter. Both still decide whether puff paste rises in leaves or leaks fat.

• The hinge: keep everything coldPuff paste works because solid butter separates layers of dough and turns their moisture to steam in the oven. A cool room, a chilled slab and rests in the refrigerator between turns all help; the recipe itself stipulates only that the room be cool.
• Why the butter is worked and blottedNineteenth-century butter, often farm-made and lightly worked, carried loose buttermilk and water. Kneading it on the slab and pressing it with a cloth drove that liquid out. Modern commercial butter is already standardised to roughly 80–82 per cent fat, so this step is largely unnecessary; if you use a European-style butter at 82–84 per cent fat you are closer still to what the writer was trying to achieve.
• "Slab or pasteboard"A slab is marble or slate, valued because it stays cold; a pasteboard is a large wooden board kept for pastry. A chilled marble or granite worktop is the direct equivalent, and a metal baking sheet left in the freezer for ten minutes will substitute.
• No proportions are given herePeriod recipes for a full puff paste commonly used equal weights of flour and butter, with proportionately less butter for a lighter paste. Because this text does not state quantities, treat it as guidance on handling rather than a complete formula.
• Hot-weather practiceThe sentence breaks off here, and what followed cannot be recovered from this page. Ice water for the dough and a spell in the refrigerator for the butter block are the modern equivalents of the period's recourse to ice.