Puff Homemade Pie Crust of 1877
Posted by Warren
Makes one 9 to 10 inch pie, double crust, dough
Buckeye Cookery, and Practical Housekeeping, by Estelle W. Wilcox, 1877
Here is a short cut to making puff pastry. It is quicker and less time consuming to put together.
Make sure the working surface is chilled or at least cool.
Homemade Puff Pie Crust Recipe from 1877
Buckeye Cookery, and Practical Housekeeping, by Estelle W. Wilcox, 1877 – Text Version
PUFF-PASTE.
One quart flour, three-quarters pound butter or lard, yolks of two eggs, a tea-spoon salt, and a table-spoon powdered sugar; mix with cold or ice-water in a cool temperature. Place the flour on a board, sprinkle over the salt and sugar, add gradually the yolks of eggs beaten up with a little ice-water, pouring them in with one hand and mixing with the tips of the fingers of the other, until it becomes a smooth dough, as soft as can be readily handled. Roll out as described in preceding recipe.
A Cookbook with vintage pie recipes
This was the great mid-American cookbook of its day. It began life as a charity cookbook in 1876.
They published the Buckeye Cookery cookbook to raise money to build a parsonage.
They named it The Centennial Buckeye Cook Book, in honor of America’s Centennial.
Why was the book so popular? Clearly, it met the needs of thousands of women looking for advice on how to feed their families and manage their households.
This cookbook kept up-to-date by revisions covering newly introduced foods and equipment.
It contains about 300 pages of cookery recipes and another 125 or so of household hints, suggestions for caring for the sick, for doing laundry, for the cellar and the ice-house, for “Hired Help”, for preserving, gardening – and everything else within the housewives’ sphere of responsibility.
Pie Crust Recipe made with Lard and Butter
—Ingredients and instructions are not the actual vintage recipe but is provided for reference purposes.
Pastry dough – double crust
2 1/2 cups King Arthur all-purpose flour (Red bag)
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 ice cold water (do not use all at once)
1 teaspoon cold canola oil
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) cold leaf lard
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter (any brand wrapped in foil)
Directions making the dough
1. Add all your dry ingredients to a chilled glass bowl and tossed the mixture with a fork.
2. Cube your fats into small pieces and add to the bowl.
3. Using just your finger tips rub the cold fat into the flour. Stop when the mixture resembles cracker crumbs and tiny peas.
4. Whip the ice cold water and oil until it looks cloudy and the mixture looks a little foamy. Quickly add two thirds of this to the dry ingredients and toss with a fork. If it is not coming together add the remaining liquid.
Do Not over work the dough.
It will make it tough.
5. The dough should look somewhat dry but come together when squeezed in your hands.
6. Now divide this mixture in half to make two balls by squeezing it all together. Compress and flatten the balls to form two large disks.
7. Wrap disks tightly with plastic wrap and chill for 30-60 minutes. You can freeze them for two months by adding a foil wrap to the covered disks.
8. Your dough is now ready for your favorite pie recipe.
Pie Crust Success
Why make just one batch. If you plan to use this often make a large batch.
More than half of the time used to make pastry is spent getting out the ingredients, putting things away and cleaning up.
Wrap the dough in plastic then aluminum foil and freeze it up to a month.
Take the dough out a day before and let thaw in the refrigerator. It works like a charm.
