SC - Roast Beef

[Decker, Terry D.]

Elizabethan Pie Shell

Another Way.  Then make your paste with butter, fair water, and the yolkes
of two or three Egs, and so soone as ye have driven your paste, cast on a
little sugar, and rosewater, and harden your paste afore in the oven.  Then
take it out, and fill it, and set it in againe.

			The Good Huswifes Handmaid, 1588


1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cup flour (approx.)
2 egg yolks
1/3 cup water
sugar

In a bowl, cut butter into 1 cup of flour, until it crumbs.
Add egg yolks and cut into mixture.  Add additional flour a Tablespoon at a
time until the moisture is absorbed into the crumbs.
Add the water and cut into mixture.  Add additional flour a Tablespoon at a
time, as needed, until the moisture is absorbed into the crumbs.
Push the crumbs into a ball, working the dough gently for a few seconds to
smooth it.
Let the dough rest for 15 to 30 minutes.
Roll out the crusts on a floured surface and transfer to pie pans.  The
recipe makes two 8 or 9 inch pie shells.
Prick the pie shells to let air vent from between the shell and the pan.
Sprinkle sugar on the shell before baking.  I used about a scant 1/4
teaspoon granulated white.

If the shell is to be filled after baking, bake the shell at 325 degrees F
for about 35 minutes or until very light brown.
If the filling needs to be baked in the shell, bake the shell at 325 degrees
F for about 10 minutes, remove, fill and continue baking as per the filling
recipe.

Notes:  This recipe makes very light, crisp pie shells.  If the dough is
worked minimally, the result is flaky and very similar to modern pie shells.
The more the dough is worked, the more the pie shell resembles a crisp or
cracker.  

By taste, salt is noticeably missing from the crust, but the sugar modifies
the taste.  A fine ground white sugar or a brown sugar might present
interesting differences.

As written, this recipe appears to be for a dessert shell, but it might also
represent an interesting contrast for a savory filling.