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Dessert

Rough Flaky Pastry

A light pastry dough made with flour, lard, baking powder, salt, and cold water, folded and rolled to create flaky layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Rough Flaky Pastry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Cut the lard or dripping into small pieces and add to the flour mixture.

  3. Add cold water gradually to form a light paste (avoid making it too wet).

Laminate and roll

  1. On a floured surface, roll out the dough thinly.

  2. Fold the dough into thirds, turn it, and roll it out again.

  3. Repeat the folding and rolling process two more times.

  4. Finally, roll it out thinly for use.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once mixed with water.
Lard or clarified dripping
Fat pieces stay separate in the dough, helping create flaky layers when rolled and folded.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to help the pastry rise and become light.

The step that matters

Adding the cold water. Adding water gradually and keeping it cold limits gluten development and keeps the fat in firm pieces. Too much water makes the dough tough instead of flaky.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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