FINE PUFF PASTE.

To every pound of the best fresh butter allow a pound or a quart of
superfine flour. Sift the flour into a deep pan, and then sift on a
plate some additional flour to use for sprinkling and rolling. Wash the
butter through two cold waters; squeezing out all the salt, and
whatever milk may remain in it; and then make it up with your hands
into a round lump, and put it in ice till you are ready to use it. Then
divide the butter into four equal parts. Cut up one of the quarters
into the pan of flour; and divide the remaining three quarters into six
pieces, [Footnote: Or into nine; and roll it in that number of times.]
cutting each quarter in half. Mix with a knife the flour and butter
that is in the pan, adding by degrees a very little cold water till you
have made it into a lump of stiff dough. Then sprinkle some flour on
the paste-board, (you should have a marble slab,) take the dough from
the pan by lifting it out with the knife, lay it on the board, and
flouring your rolling-pin, roll out the paste into a large thin sheet.
Then with the knife, put all over it, at equal distances, one of the
six pieces of butter divided into small bits. Fold up the sheet of
paste, flour it, roll it out again, and add in the same manner another
of the portions of butter. Repeat this process till the butter is all
in. Then fold it once more, lay it on a plate, and set it in a cool
place till you are ready to use it. Then divide it into as many pieces
as you want sheets of paste; roll out each sheet, and put them into
buttered plates or patty-pans. In using the rolling-pin, observe always
to roll from you. Bake the paste in a moderate oven, but rather quick
than slow. No air must be admitted to it while baking.

The edges of paste should always be notched before it goes into the
oven. For this purpose, use a sharp penknife, dipping it frequently in
flour as it becomes sticky. The notches should be even and regular. If
you do them imperfectly at first, they cannot be mended by sticking on
additional bits of paste; as, when baked, every patch will be doubly
conspicuous. There are various ways of notching; one of the neatest is
to fold over one corner of each notch; or you may arrange the notches
to stand upright and lie flat, alternately, all round the edge. They
should be made small and regular. You may form the edge into leaves
with the little tin cutters made for the purpose.

If the above directions for puff paste are carefully followed, and if
it is not spoiled in baking, it will rise to a great thickness and
appear in flakes or leaves according to the number of times you have
put in the butter.

It should be eaten the day it is baked.