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Dessert

Flaky Pastry

A pastry dough made with flour, salt, clarified dripping or lard, and water, folded with fat to create layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Flaky Pastry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Mix the flour and salt in a bowl.

  2. Rub in one-third of the fat.

  3. Gradually add the water to make the paste slightly more moist than for short pastry.

Laminate with the first portion of fat

  1. Turn the paste onto a floured surface.

  2. Roll the paste into a long strip.

  3. Divide the remaining fat into two portions.

  4. Cut one portion into small pieces on the paste.

  5. Dredge lightly with flour.

  6. Fold the paste evenly in thirds.

  7. Roll it out.

Add the second fat and finish

  1. Fold the paste with the second portion of fat.

  2. Roll it out.

  3. Roll the pastry to about ½ inch thick or to your desired thickness.

  4. Chill the pastry in a cool place for 10 to 20 minutes after each addition of fat.

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 gluten structure that holds the thin layers of the paste together.
Dripping or lard
Stays solid between layers and melts in the oven, creating flaky separation and tenderness.
Water
Hydrates the flour to form the paste and develops its elasticity for rolling.

The step that matters

Keep the fat cold between folds. Solid fat stays in separate layers within the dough. If it softens or melts into the paste during rolling, the layers blend together and the pastry loses its flakiness. Chilling firms the fat again before the next roll.

“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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