Short or Flaky Pastry
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You'll find this recipe in:
The Settlement Cook Book
Milwaukee, 1901
By: Mrs. Simon Kander
Historic Recipe:
SHORT OR FLAKY PASTRY
1 heaping cup flour,
¼ teaspoon salt,
¼ cup lard,
¼ cup butter,
Ice water.
Have all the material ice cold. Chop the shortening in the flour till the size of peas and beans. Toss lightly with a knife, adding enough ice water to about half wet the flour. Turn out on a smooth, cold board. Gather with the knife into a square pile. Then pound lightly with rolling pin till well flattened. Roll in an oblong piece ½ in. thick; fold in thirds and roll again; repeat, and after the third rolling it will usually be sufficiently compact to roll thin enough to line a plate. This paste improves by standing a half hour or more on the ice. Sufficient for 1 pie.
My adaptation of the recipe:
½ cup butter – 115 g (or ¼ cup butter and ¼ cup lard)
1 1/3 cup flour – 200 g
¼ tsp salt
½ cup ice water – 120 mL
*** I used Short or Flaky Pastry to make Cheese Straws and I wanted a lot of them! I made a double batch of pastry, so those are the amounts you see in the photographs. I also opted to only use butter in my recipe instead of half butter and half lard.
Assembling the pastry dough
Cut the cold butter and lard into small pieces. An easy way cut your butter down is to grate it as soon as you remove it from the fridge. Add the butter and lard pieces to your flour in a large bowl and use a pastry cutter or two knives to cut the size of the butter chunks until they are pea-sized.
Stir in the salt, then gradually add ice water while stirring until the pastry is half wet. A fair portion of your dough will still be floury. I ended up adding ½ cup of cold water instead of the ¼ cup in the 1901 recipe. The next step is to beat, roll and fold your pastry to finish incorporating your ingredients (keep reading for those instructions).
Rolling out the pastry
1) Scoop the pastry out of the bowl onto your rolling surface and mound it into a square pile. Hit the pastry with your rolling pin in different directions, then roll it until it is about 1 cm (½”) thick.
2) Carefully fold your dough into thirds. It probably won’t be sticking together very well at all, but try your best to pile and fold it in 3 layers.
3) Beat the pastry with your rolling pin in different directions again and roll it out until it is about 1 cm (½”) thick.
4) Fold your pastry dough into thirds again. It should mostly be sticking together at this point.
5) For the third and final time, tap the pastry down with your rolling pin and roll it until it’s about 1 cm (½”) thick.
6) Fold it in thirds again and put in the fridge to cool for at least an hour. Your pastry is now ready to use in your recipe.
This recipe makes enough pastry to line a pie plate. Double the recipe if you’d like a top crust. Bake at 400 F (200 C) or as directed in your pie recipe.
Every year in March for my blogging anniversary, I make a different Cheese Straw recipe and this year’s Cheese Straws called for an pre-prepared batch of pastry. I searched for a pastry recipe from the same time period and found Short or Flaky Pastry in the 1901 classic The Settlement Cook Book.
Short or Flaky Pastry is a puff pastry recipe that’s easy to pull off and it does live up to its name by producing a pastry that’s both flaky and light. It calls for half butter and half lard, but it is also delicious when made with only butter. This is definitely a recipe that I’m going to look up on my own website when I need to make some puff pastry fast!
