One pound of fecula, one pound of sugar, six egg-whites. Lay the fecula on the table, forming a hollow in the center, into this put the sugar, a little tepid water and six egg-whites, lightly whisked; make a very hard paste, set it in a cool place hermetically closed in a bag for about two hours.
This is a pastillage — a stiff sugar-and-starch paste rolled and cut into the decorative borders that framed cold buffet pieces. It is meant to dry hard and hold a sharp edge, not to be pleasant eating.
"Pâte anglaise pour bordures" belongs to the ornamental side of nineteenth-century grande cuisine, the branch that produced socles, plinths and fretted borders to raise and frame cold dishes on a buffet. Charles Ranhofer put it among his elementary methods, and the practical logic of the preparation is plain enough: a chef needed a paste that dried bone-hard, stayed white, and cut cleanly, and starch, sugar and egg white did that better than any flour dough. Pastes of this family are generally grouped with pastillage and gum paste, and the English attribution is traditional rather than documented — French kitchens attached "anglaise" to a number of preparations without much regard for origin. The technique survives almost unchanged in competition sugar work, where pastillage is still rolled, cut and air-dried for the same reason: it holds an edge that no edible dough can.