Pawaru-Grahmata

№ 0IX. nodaļa

Mīkla

Doughs for tortes and pies

  • Makes about 650 g, enough for a 24 cm torte with a lid or lattice
  • about 2½ hours, mostly chilling
  • Melnraksts · vēl nav izmēģināts

1796Mihkla.

Modernizētslpp. 355–359 · PDF 369–373

Adapted from the 1796 text; not yet tested. The later recipes in this chapter refer back to these doughs, most often to "fine puff pastry".

The book gives 3 mārciņas of flour, 2½ mārciņas of butter and 2 eggs for the puff pastry (about 1.26 kg flour and 1.05 kg butter), and 1 mārciņa of flour, ½ mārciņa of butter and 4 or 5 eggs for the summer pastry (about 420 g flour and 210 g butter). The other doughs have no quantities; the amounts below are ours.

### 1. Puff pastry (lapu mīkla)

Method

36 soļi
  1. Cut 50 g of the butter into small pieces. Heap the flour (and salt) on a cold board or in a bowl, make a well, and put in the butter pieces, the egg, the brandy and most of the water. Work it into a smooth, firm dough with cold hands, adding the rest of the water if needed and dusting with flour if it sticks. Wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
  2. Put the remaining 200 g butter between two sheets of baking paper and beat it with a rolling pin into a thin, pliable sheet that is still cold. (The book softens it in hands dipped in cold water.) Cut it into thin pieces.
  3. Divide the dough into 3 pieces and roll each out very thin, about 25 × 35 cm. Stack them with about half the butter scattered in thin pieces between the layers.
  4. Roll the stack out to a rectangle about 1 cm thick, scatter over a third of the remaining butter and fold it in three like a letter. Turn it a quarter turn, roll it out and fold it again with the next third of the butter. Chill for 20 minutes whenever the butter starts to soften.
  5. Give it 5 such folds in all, three with butter and the last two without, chilling between them. The book says the more often it is rolled and buttered, the better it will be.
  6. Chill for at least 30 minutes before using. Roll 3–4 mm thick for a base, 2–3 mm for lids and strips. Bake at 200–220 °C for the first 15 minutes, then as the recipe says.
  7. ### 2. Summer pastry (the book's "another way")
  8. Makes about 550 g · about 1 hour
  9. Rub 75 g butter into the flour (and salt) until it looks like breadcrumbs.
  10. Beat the eggs with the wine and work them in to make a soft but rollable dough.
  11. Roll it out thin, dot with a third of the remaining butter, fold in three and roll again. Repeat twice more. Chill for 30 minutes before using; bake at 200 °C.
  12. The book recommends this dough in warm summer weather, when puff pastry doesn't turn out well.
  13. ### 3. Hot-water crust (cieta ūdens mīkla)
  14. For large pies of game, beef or old turkeys · makes about 750 g
  15. Put the flour (and salt) in a bowl and make a well. Pour in the boiling water and stir with a wooden spoon, then knead to a firm, smooth dough as soon as you can handle it. If it is soft, knead in more flour until it is stiff.
  16. Keep it covered and shape it while still warm; it stiffens as it cools.
  17. ### 4. Finer butter crust
  18. For finer pies of hare, duck, capon, chicken or pigeon · makes about 850 g
  19. Put the flour (and salt) in a bowl. Bring the water and butter to the boil in a small pan.
  20. As soon as it boils, ladle the melted butter off the top onto the flour first, then add the water a little at a time, stirring, until you have a firm dough. You may not need all the water.
  21. Knead briefly until smooth and use while warm.
  22. The book prizes doughs 3 and 4 because patterns cut or moulded on them keep their shape in baking, while puff pastry rises and blurs them.
  23. ### 5. Pastry rim for a dish (rante)
  24. For a shallow ovenproof dish about 24 cm across
  25. Heat the oven to 120 °C. Roll the dough 5 mm thick and cut a long strip as wide as the rim is to be high (3–4 cm) and long enough to go round the edge of the dish; join two strips if needed.
  26. Beat the egg white lightly and brush the edge of the dish with it. Press the strip on all round, evenly and neatly. Crimp it with your fingertips and stick the ends together with egg white.
  27. The taller the rim, the stiffer and thicker the dough must be, or it won't hold together.
  28. Dry it in the warm oven for 20–30 minutes, until firm and stiff. Then pour in the filling and bake as the recipe says.
  29. ### 6. Pastry case (mīklu bļoda), shaped with a paper template
  30. Cut a template out of baking parchment in the shape the torte or pie should have: round, square, angular, scalloped, star- or heart-shaped. A 24 cm circle suits most recipes in this chapter.
  31. Roll the dough 4–5 mm thick, lay the template on it and cut round it. Butter the paper, lay it on the dough and turn both over, so the buttered side of the paper is underneath and the dough on top.
  32. Cut a strip for the side, 3 cm wide and 5 mm thick. Brush the edge of the base with egg yolk, stand the strip on it all round, and crimp it with your fingers into fine points.
  33. If you like, make patterns from more strips in the middle or along the edge, and fill the spaces with the same filling or a different one.
  34. Slide it, on its paper, onto a baking tray or into a tart tin. Pour in the filling and bake: for puff pastry, 15 minutes at 200–220 °C, then 180 °C until done.
  35. ### 7. Lids and lattices
  36. Roll the dough 2–3 mm thick. Lay it over the filling as a whole lid, or cut it into patterns first; or cut strips 1–1.5 cm wide, lay them crosswise over the filling and stick the ends to the rim with egg yolk or water. Cut a small steam hole in a whole lid and brush the top with beaten egg (both our additions).

Notes

What the book says vs. what we added

the doughs, their uses and the shaping are the book's. The salt, the folding schedule, chilling times, temperatures, the egg glaze and the scaled amounts are ours. The book's puff pastry puts the butter into the dough in pieces, then stacks thin sheets with butter between them, rolls and folds them "layer on layer" with more butter each time. It doesn't say how the 2½ mārciņas are divided between these steps; we put a fifth into the dough and use the rest between the layers.

Butter

the book's klārēts sviests is clarified butter, melted, skimmed and allowed to set again. Clarified butter that has set firm is hard to roll between sheets of dough; ordinary cold unsalted butter (82% fat) is easier. All-butter puff pastry from a shop works in every recipe that asks for "fine puff pastry".

Scaled down

the book's puff pastry makes about 2.5 kg, enough for several tortes at once. Ours makes enough for one.

Baking

the book bakes tortes in a tortu panna, a shallow lidded pan set on embers with more embers on the lid, "slowly", that is, with gentle heat from above and below. In an oven, 180–190 °C suits most filled tortes, after a hotter start of 200–220 °C for puff pastry.

Hot-water crust

the plain crust (dough 3) has no fat and bakes very hard. In the 18th century it was mostly a baking case for large meat pies and was not always eaten. Dough 4, with butter, is much nicer to eat.

The paper

the book bakes the pastry case on buttered paper, which stays under it in the pan. Baking parchment does the same job without butter.

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