Introductory Remarks

THE greatest possible cleanliness and nicety should be observed in making pastry. The slab or board, paste-rollers, tins, cutters moulds, everything, in fact, used for it, and especially the hands, should be equally free from the slightest soil or particle of dust. The more expeditiously the finer kinds of paste are made and despatched to the oven, and the less they are touched the better. Much of their excellence depends upon the baking also. They should have a sufficient degree of heat to raise them quickly, but not so fierce a one as to colour them too much before they are done, and still less to burn them. The oven door should remain closed after they are put in, and not removed until the paste is set Large raised pies require a steadily sustained, or, what is technically called a soaking heat, and to ensure this the oven should be made very hot, then cleared, and closely shut from half to a whole hour before it is used, to concentrate the heat. It is an advantage in this case to have a large log or two of cord-wood burned in it, in addition to the usual fuel.