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Puff Paste
By the French cook this is styled feuilletage, and is prepared as follows: Weigh out the flour, previously dried and shaken through a sieve, and use an equal amount of the best fresh butter. In the summer keep this butter on the ice till wanted; in winter knead it in a cloth to make it supple. Then spread the flour on the table or marble paste-slab; make a bay or well in the center. Into this put a little salt, and gradually pour in water whilst the flour is worked in by a circular motion of two fingers round and round the inside of the well until sufficient moisture has been added to work the remainder of the flour into a firm pliant dough. If this is well and correctly made it will not stick either to the table or to the hands. Cover the paste with a cloth, and let it stand a few minutes to settle, but first be quite sure that the paste is stiff, as it would be disadvantageous to work in more flour or water after the paste has settled. In ten or fifteen minutes the dough will be ready to work. Sprinkle the slab with flour by means of a dredger, which should contain very dry flour only, or the perforations in the lid will get stopped up, place the paste on this, and roll it out with a rolling-pin, which may be either plain or fitted with an axle and two handles, so that the hands remain quiet while working (either answers admirably). The one with the handles, which is sometimes preferred, permits the operator to bear heavily on the paste, but this is not always an advantage. Roll out the paste to a square not more than one-fourth of an inch thick. Roll out the butter also to a square shape, and lay it on the paste. Fold over the ends and then the sides in such a manner that the butter is entirely wrapped up. Roll this out with the pin, pushing the paste forward as well as the butter in its interior; continue rolling until it forms a long strip, not more than one-eighth or one-sixth inch in thickness, preserving the regularity of shape as much as possible. Next fold it over in three layers, and when thus folded give it another turn; this is called one turn. Roll it out once more the same way. Every time this process is repeated adds what is termed a turn to the paste; the very most required at any time for the lightest of French feuilletage being six turns; five are generally recognized as good enough for most purposes, and many pastry cooks will not exceed three. A very famous French cook advises that under all circumstances, whether in winter or summer, the paste should be set to cool for ten minutes between each two turns. The greatest care must be taken to prevent the butter from escaping from the paste. This happens if the paste is too soft, rolled out too thin, or not rolled out regularly to a flat; that is, if it remains thicker on one side than on the other. In summer it is very difficult to make a good paste without the help of ice or a cool cellar; but this inconvenience may be obviated by replacing the butter with beef suet. This suet must be previously well picked over, and then soaked in fresh water, well drained, and then pounded, and thus made into a fine smooth paste. Should it require to be made more supple it can be worked in the cloth, as prescribed for the butter. The plan of making puff paste, as practiced by the English professional cooks, differs from the French mode.
Take three pounds of well-dried, sifted flour and the same quantity of butter; rub a fourth of the butter till it is taken up in the flour, then mix with water, adding the juice of half a lemon. If salted butter be used, it must be washed in cold water so as to free it from salt. Let the paste be firm, for if it is made soft it will not be a success. When you have succeeded so far, roll out the paste on a slab to about one-third inch thick, and spread the remainder of the butter over it, which should not be too hard or too soft but spreadable. This done, fold over and roll out again; repeat this three times, then roll it up loosely, cover with a floured cloth, and put it in a cool place for two or three hours, or until wanted for use. You will understand from this that puff paste consists of a number of layers of butter and dough; these layers should be worked without breaking through into each other. You must, therefore, use your rolling pin very lightly, for if you use it too heavily you will perforate the paste, and the butter will run out in cooking. The trimmings of puff paste or pieces cut away should not be used again with the original mass, as the cut edges would allow the butter to overrun the layers, and spoil its flakiness. It is commonly used for making patties, pies, or decorating tartlets, etc., and is known to the pastry cook as second or patten paste. Of the varieties of puff paste, the following may be considered the more important: (I.) Sift two pounds of very dry flour, put it on the table, make a hollow in the center, throw in a little salt, and a little piece of two pounds of butter. In making this paste the same quantity each of butter and flour is used. Work the butter and flour together, and add the beaten yolks of three eggs, and sufficient water to make a paste of the consistency of the butter. If the paste is not of the right consistency the butter will break through when the paste is turned. When the dough has been lightly worked, mould it into a ball, which flatten quickly in the middle. Put the remainder of the two pounds of butter on the table, and work it with a little water to extract the buttermilk, then roll it in a cloth, and squeeze till all the moisture is out. Flatten the butter, put it in the paste, and fold the paste well over it. Sift a little flour over the table, and roll the paste out with a rolling-pin into a long strip. Double the paste in three, then roll it out again, sprinkling a little flour over to prevent its sticking. Sprinkle a baking-sheet with flour, double the paste in three folds, put it on a baking-sheet, and leave for a short time in a cool temperature. Roll the paste out again twice, proceeding as before; then let it rest again, and give it another two turns, which will make six in all, then roll it out to a long shape and fold it in two. It is then ready for use.
This is a professional method written for cooks working on a marble slab in a cold room, and the quantities are restaurant-scale. Everything below is about temperature control and honest weighing; the technique itself has not changed in a century.
- The hinge: keep everything cold"Keep this butter on the ice till wanted" means refrigerate it, and the same goes for the dough between turns. If the butter warms much above a cool room temperature it merges into the flour instead of staying in sheets, and the pastry bakes heavy rather than flaky. The "very famous French cook" quoted here asks only for ten minutes' cooling between each two turns; in a modern kitchen a longer rest of 20-30 minutes in the refrigerator is easier to work with.
- Scale it downThe recipe works at 2 lb flour with 2 lb butter in one version and 3 lb of each in the other, so four to six pounds of paste. For home use, 250 g flour, 250 g butter, about 125 ml water and 5 g salt is a workable single batch.
- Equal butter and flour by weightThe recipe is explicit that the two are matched, which is a full puff paste rather than the leaner rough puff most modern books teach. Weigh both; measuring flour by volume will throw the ratio off badly at this proportion.
- "Well-dried, sifted flour"Flour was once stored in damp larders and warmed or spread out to dry before pastry work. Modern bagged flour needs no drying, only sifting or whisking to loosen it. Use plain all-purpose flour; bread flour makes the dough elastic and hard to roll thin.
- The lemon juiceIn the English method the acid is generally held to relax the gluten a little so the paste rolls without fighting back. It is optional, and about half a teaspoon corresponds to the recipe's half lemon at home scale.
- Washing salted butterSalted butter of the period was often heavily salted, since the salt was a preservative, hence the instruction to wash it. Simply use unsalted butter and add the salt to the water for the dough.
- Beef suet in place of butterThe hot-weather substitution works because suet stays firm at room temperature, but it gives a pastry that tastes of beef fat and sets hard as it cools. Reserve it for savory pies if you try it at all; a modern refrigerator removes the reason for it.
- Turns and thicknessA "turn" here is one roll-out plus a fold in three, the same as a modern single fold. Six turns is the stated maximum; beyond that the layers begin to blur. Roll the initial square to a scant 1/4 inch and the long strips to about 1/8 inch, as written.
- TrimmingsThe advice not to return offcuts to the main block is sound. Stack the scraps flat rather than balling them up, chill, and use them for cheese straws or a pie base where lift matters less.
- Baking, which the recipe omitsPuff paste needs a hot oven to turn its water to steam before the butter melts out: 425F for the first 15 minutes, then 375-400F until the layers are dry and colored through. Bake on parchment, chill the cut shapes first, and cut with a sharp knife so the edges are not crushed.
Feuilletage, from feuille, a leaf, is the French pastry cook's name for dough built of countable layers, and Oscar Tschirky's book presents it as trade knowledge rather than a household recipe: two national methods side by side, a note on which rolling pin the operator prefers, and the professional's warning about reusing trimmings. The French "well in the flour" approach and the English method of rubbing in a quarter of the butter first were both standard in nineteenth-century kitchens, and Oscar's willingness to print both is itself worth noting. The passage also carries a hint of its period: the choice between ice, a cool cellar, or replacing butter with beef suet was a real summer dilemma in a hotel kitchen before mechanical refrigeration was general, and the term "second" or "patten paste" for the everyday grade is now largely gone from English usage.