No. 143

Office Paste

Pate d'office

Sift one pound of flour on the table, make a hollow in the center, and in this lay half a pound of sugar, two whole eggs and four yolks. Mix all together to form a smooth paste, knead it twice, and let it rest in a cool place before using it.

← No. 142 Noodle Paste, Noodle Paste for Borders and R Elementary Methods No. 144 Pie Paste (cold) (pate a Pate) →

For the Modern Kitchen

A stiff sweet dough with no fat and no liquid beyond the eggs, meant for the pastry room rather than for pie crust. It behaves nothing like a modern tart pastry and should not be substituted for one.

Weights in cupsOne pound of flour is about 3 1/2 cups; half a pound of sugar is about 1 1/8 cups of granulated, or use superfine, which dissolves into the eggs more readily. Working by weight is worth it here, since the whole dough depends on the flour-to-sugar ratio holding at 2:1.
The eggs are the only liquidTwo whole eggs and four yolks are all the moisture the dough gets. Use large eggs and expect a dry, crumbly mass at first that only comes together under sustained pressure; resist adding water, which slackens the paste and makes it spread in the oven.
"Knead it twice"Probably means bring the dough together, work it briefly, then work it a second time after a short pause, rather than two long kneadings; the recipe does not say. Overworking risks developing gluten, and the baked pieces may turn tough and warped rather than crisp.
Why it must rest coldChilling firms the yolk fat and lets the flour hydrate, so the paste rolls thin without tearing and holds a cut edge. An hour in the refrigerator, wrapped, is the modern equivalent of the cool larder.
What it is forPâte d'office is generally understood as a paste of the pastry office, rolled thin and cut for bases, borders, medallions and socles on which other confections were mounted. It bakes hard and sweet, closer to a shortbread plaque than to a crust, though the recipe itself names no use.
BakingThe original gives none, because the paste is baked to suit whatever it is cut into. As a modern starting point for thin cut shapes, a moderate oven around 350F until the edges just color will keep them pale and flat; anything hotter risks browning the high sugar content unevenly. Watch them rather than trust a time.
YieldRoughly 1 3/4 to 1 7/8 lb of dough, enough for several sheets rolled thin.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, laid out The Epicurean (1894) as a professional reference, and this entry sits in a run of foundation doughs — noodle paste, pie paste, puff paste — that a kitchen brigade was expected to know cold. The name is literal: the office was the department of a grand French kitchen responsible for cold sweets, ices and confectionery display, distinct from the hot kitchen, and its staff needed a paste sturdy enough to build with. Nineteenth-century banquet service prized architecture — plinths, bases, tiered stands supporting pieces of confectionery — and a fatless, egg-bound sugar dough bakes rigid and dimensionally stable in a way buttery pastry does not. That decorative tradition largely fell away with the elaborate service style that required it, which is why the recipe reads today like a pastry with no stated purpose.