No. 144

Pie Paste (cold) (pate a Pate)

froid

This is prepared with melted butter as follows: Sift a pound of flour, form a hollow in the center and in it lay four egg-yolks and the third of an ounce of salt dissolved in a little water. Melt eight ounces of butter, pour the clear part slowly into the hollow, then work the flour gradually into it, adding the necessary water and knead the paste at once, roll it into a ball and leave to cool. This paste is far mellower than when made with cold butter.

Another proportion for cold pie paste is to have one pound of flour, four ounces of butter, four eggs, tepid water and salt; prepare and finish as above.

← No. 143 Office Paste Elementary Methods No. 145 Pastes for Hot Pies →

For the Modern Kitchen

A hot-butter pastry for the casings of cold raised pies and pâtés, not a dessert crust. Two proportions are given; the first is the richer and more tender of the two.

What "cold" means herePâte à pâté froid is paste for pies meant to be served cold — raised pies and pâtés eaten at room temperature or chilled. It is not a cold-butter method; the butter here is melted. Ranhofer's next entry, No. 145, covers pastes for pies served hot.
The hinge: use only the clear butterMelt the butter, let it settle, and pour off only the clear golden fat, leaving the milky sediment behind. Ranhofer specifies "the clear part" but does not say why; the usual explanation offered is that the water and milk solids in whole melted butter slacken the dough.
WeightsA pound of flour is about 450 g, or roughly 3 1/2 cups scooped and levelled. Eight ounces of butter is two US sticks (225 g); four ounces is one stick. A third of an ounce of salt is about 9 g, nearer 1 1/2 level teaspoons of fine salt.
Water is unmeasured, deliberatelyRanhofer says "the necessary water" because it depends on your flour and on how much liquid the yolks carry. He gives no quantity; add it in stages and stop when the dough coheres without tackiness.
Knead at once, then chillKnead at once, then cool -- Unlike short pastry, this dough wants working: knead it while the butter is still fluid so the fat is fully dispersed. Ranhofer says only to roll it into a ball and "leave to cool", without specifying refrigeration or a time; cool it until the butter has set again and the ball rolls without tearing.
Choose your flourRanhofer does not specify a flour. Plain all-purpose flour will serve for a casing that has to stand up under filling and jelly.
YieldThe first formula gives about 1 3/4 lb (800 g) of dough — enough to line and lid a single medium raised pie or a 9-inch deep pie, with trimmings for decoration.
The second proportionFour ounces of butter to a pound of flour, with four whole eggs rather than yolks, gives a leaner, firmer, drier paste. Ranhofer offers it only as "another proportion" and does not say which pies it suits.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, longtime chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a near-encyclopedic record of the French professional kitchen as it was practiced in America, and the Elementary Methods chapter reads like a workshop manual: a numbered paste for every purpose, cross-referenced forward and back. Distinguishing paste for cold pies from paste for hot ones was ordinary professional sense at the time — a cold raised pie or pâté en croûte had to hold its shape for hours on a buffet, be sliced clean, and often be filled with aspic after baking, so its casing was built as a structure first and eating pastry second. The melted-butter technique Ranhofer prefers here is an old one in French pastry work, generally credited with producing a more pliable, less flaky dough precisely because the fat is dispersed through the flour rather than left in layers, which is the opposite of what a modern cook is usually taught to want.</invoke>