PASTRY – MAKING.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 32, 3 November 1894, Page 11

PASTRY - MAKING.

“We can live without knowledge, and live without books, But civilised man cannot live without cooks.”

Can I make good pastry ? Yes, .first-class pastry. You see I speak with no uncertain sound ; but there was a time —thank goodness it is past —when pastry-making seemed to be the one particular stumbling-block jmt in my way, probably for the purpose of keeping me in a proper humble frame of mind, though why we should J>e expected to be so preternaturally Jiumble I really cannot see; perhaps to prove that the unexpected never .happens. It’s a fact that it never does —we have been expecting a dividend ■from the “Golden Site” for ever so long. “ Yes, and Ave’ll get it soon,” ■says mj r friend, who is a true believer, und then where will your theory be ?” “ Oh, that will be all right,” I answer, ■ 4 ‘ because I shall have expected twice as much.*” But about that pastry. Try as I .might and did the result w r as always .the same — a hard, tough, unwhole-some-looking crust. Fortunately Jim is one of the kindest men in the world, .and he would say —“It’s very nice, wifie —ever so much better than the qpies they used to give us at the board-ing-school. . They were as hard as .rocks; very often the piece I was cutting would fly across the table into fellow’s lap, and he would -collar it and leave me minus. How •this is not so bad as that.” But I knew better—l knew it was .about as bad as it very well could be, .and thought Jim a brick, for I knew ■ that many a husband would have rsuggested eating the fruit and paving ■the back yard with the crust, or sorae‘thing equally humiliating. The worst ■ of it was, Jim’s aunt, with whom he Jived before we were married, makes delicious pastry, and I knew this, so I determined somehow or other to be just as successful, at any cost. Every week I took in’two or three extra pounds of batter (better ruin his pocket than his digestion, I thought) and practised—someone had told me that it was only practice that was required. I even condescended to artifice—asked a woman, who was a good and whose pastry was beyond reproach, how she made it; said mine had not been turning out so well '■lately—as if it ever had. “ You just take the ingredients, toss them together, and roll it out and the thing is done,” she said. So I went home, tossed the ingre- • dients together, and rolled it out, and the result was even worse than before. .However, I persevered, and one day, to my great surprise, I was successful—yes, decidedly successful—it was flaky and soft, just as it should be. I iracked my brains to find out what had made the difference, and remembered that after breaking the butter into the ; flour I had mixed it with as small a ■ quantity of milk as possible, and that was the secret. triumph was . complete when Jim’s aunt came to dinner and said —“ I wish you would let me see you make the next pie—your pastry is much better than mine.” A whole volume was condensed in the look which flashed from Jim's end of the table to mine. Those are the men who put things right in the long run the men who have patience with our mistakes, and pre--tend they can see nothing wrong when they know we have tried our

best and failed. If Jim had grumbled or laughed at me I should have given him every other kind of pudding, but I should never have learned to make good pastry. * Since writing this we have got our dividend, but I consider that is an exception which proves my rule. Linda.