PASTRY, articles of food in which the chief part consists of a paste made of flour. This wou:d of course apply to bread, but it has been limited by custom to such lighter articles as are made by the pastry-cook, and chiefly to those in which the paste is made to assume a light flaky character by the addition of butter, etc., and by the mode of working it up. The commonest kind is made of a dough of flour and water, into which butter or lard is worked by hand, in the proportion of six winces to the pound. The finest kind is usually termed pair paste, and considerable skill is required to make it well, for it depends. next to the goodness of the materials, upon lightness of hand in kneadieg the ingredients together. These ingredients, consist of tine wheaten four and hotter ia the proportion of four ounces of butter to a pound of flour, with cold water just sullicient to make a good stiff elastic dough; this is rolled out with a ralliag-pia, and double UT previous (pi entity of butter is then spread over it. It is then rolled up and lightly
kneaded, so as to work the butter in thoroughly. Coolness is very important in making pastry; a marble slab is therefore most desirable for making it upon. The thinner it is rolled out before the butter is then spread the better, because when it is put in the oven the laminae which have been formed by folding or rolling up the bluer with the dough, separate by the disengagement of the watery vapor, and the thinner and lighter the flakes are the better is the puff paste. Another kind is called short • paste; in this the flour is made warm, and the butter or lard used is often melted. and a little sugar and an egg or two are added. This, when baked, has none of the flaky character of puff paste, but it is better adapted for meat and sonic other kinds of pies which require to he baked withont a dish. Game pies, with elaborately-decorated crusts, are made of this pastry.