Short or Flaky Pastry

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Short or Flaky Pastry

Every year in March for my blogging anniversary, I make a different Cheese Straw recipe and this year’s Cheese Straws called for a 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.

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Cheese Straws

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Cheese Straws

It’s my anniversary today! Three years ago today, I was furiously completing my first blog post, Cayenne Cheeses, which still is one of my favourite historic recipes. Each year ever since, I’ve made another baked cheesy recipe with cheese, butter, flour, salt and cayenne pepper in the ingredient list.

This Cheese Straw recipe is from the 1903 Good Housekeeping Everyday Cook Book and it’s very simple to put together. Grate cheese and season with salt and cayenne pepper. Sprinkle on top of thin strips of pastry and bake. It’s an excellent recipe for making a delicious snack from the extra pastry when you’re making a pie. You could also make or buy pastry if you want a larger batch. They taste quite more-ish, so you might very well want to make pastry specifically for this recipe!

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To make fine pippen Tarts

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To make fine pippen Tarts

To make fine pippen Tarts is a handwritten recipe from an early 1700s English manuscript in the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. It’s a recipe I’ve wagered in the battle to use up apples from the gargantuan apple tree in my back yard, and also a recipe that was interpreted in 2017 on the food history blog Cooking in the Archives. On this blog, Dr. Marissa Nicosia recreates Early Modern recipes from 1500- 1800 for the contemporary kitchen, and she is also one of my most enthusiastic supporters on twitter! You’ll find Cooking in the Archives at https://rarecooking.com/ and on twitter and Instagram as @rare_cooking.

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