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Fine Puff Pastry
One pound of flour, a little more for rolling pin and board, and half a pound of butter and half a pound of lard. Cut the butter and lard through the flour (which should be sifted) into small thin shells and mix with sufficient ice water to roll easily. Avoid kneading it and use the hands as little as possible in mixing.
A short, confident set of instructions that assumes the cook already knows what to do with pastry dough. The omissions matter more than the words: there is no water quantity, no resting time, and no oven temperature.
- Weights into cupsOne pound of sifted flour is about 4 cups; half a pound each of butter and lard is 1 cup (2 sticks) and about 1 1/8 cups respectively. Weighing is better here, since the recipe works to equal weights of flour and total fat, a 1:1 ratio.
- Water is left to your judgement"Sufficient ice water to roll easily" is genuinely open-ended, and deliberately so, because flour absorbency varies. Add it a little at a time until the mass just holds together.
- "Small thin shells"This is the hinge of the recipe. The fat is cut in until it is in flat flakes or slivers rather than crumbs or peas; those flakes are what separate into layers as their water turns to steam in the oven.
- Why the hands are forbiddenWarm palms melt the fat into the flour and you get short, sandy pastry instead of layered. Work with two knives, a pastry blender or a food processor pulsed briefly, and keep everything cold.
- LardHalf of the fat here is lard, standard in American kitchens of the period and still the best thing for flake. Buy leaf lard or rendered pork fat rather than the shelf-stable hydrogenated block; all-butter works but will be less tender.
- Resting and foldingThe original says nothing about either. Chill the dough at least 30 minutes before rolling, and if you want more lift, give it three or four rolls and folds with a rest between each.
- OvenNo temperature is given; the recipe stops at the dough and leaves baking to the cook. Puff pastry wants a hot oven, around 425-450F, hot enough to set the layers before the fat runs out of them.
- YieldRather more than 2 pounds of dough, enough for two generous double-crust pies or a large batch of tart shells and patties. It freezes well, wrapped.
The Home Cook Book was compiled in Chicago in the 1870s from recipes contributed by local women, with proceeds going to a charitable home, and it reads like what it is: neighbours writing for neighbours who already know the basics. That explains the brevity here. Pastry of this kind, half butter and half lard, might be read as an American compromise between the all-butter puff pastry of French pâtisserie and the cheaper, more forgiving lard crusts of farm kitchens, though that is interpretation rather than documented history; what is clear is that lard was abundant in a pork-raising country and produced flake with very little coaxing. The insistence on ice water and cold hands is the one piece of technique the contributor thought worth spelling out. Vegetable shortening, which would displace lard in recipes like this one, was not yet on the market when this book was assembled.