Flake Pastry No. 2 Recipe

Ingredients for Flake Pastry No. 2

• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups flour
• ½ cup vegetable shortening
• Cold water

Instructions

1. Mix salt with flour; divide vegetable shortening into four equal parts, rub in one of these only, and then mix to stiff paste with a little cold water.
2. Shape into neat oblong piece, and roll into straight strip about three times as long as it is broad.
3. All over this put on, with the point of knife, one of remaining quarters of vegetable shortening, distributing it evenly in little dabs about size of a pea, so that they look like buttons on a card.
4. Now flour surface lightly and fold past exactly in three by taking hold of the two bottom corners and doubling them upwards from you and then of the top corners and doubling them downwards towards you.
5. Turn now at right angles to its former position so as to have open ends pointing towards you.
6. Press these quickly together with the roller to inclose some air, and press paste across also in two or three places, making little ridges, thus preventing air which has been shut in, from forming into large bubble.
7. Roll out again, and repeat till remaining two parts of vegetable shortening have thus been used.
8. At the last rolling, bring to required thickness; and if it needs widening as well as lengthening, turn it at right angles to its former position, and roll straight across it as before, a rule which, with flaky pastry, should always be observed, since, unlike the short pastries, its lightness suffers if rolled obliquely to the direction in which it has been folded.
9. Sufficient for two small pies.