[Sca-cooks] porter cake

[Jessica Tiffin]

Stefan asked:
 > > "rub in the butter"? What does this mean? I've heard of folding in
 > > the butter. Is this something different?
and Nancy Kiel wrote:
>I've always interpreted this as sort of creaming the butter and flour
>together.

Rubbing in the fat is what you do for pastry-making: start with a bowl of 
flour, with whatever spices mixed in, add the chilled fat cut into little 
bits, and have at it with your fingertips, rubbing the fat and flour 
together until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.  It actually gives you 
quite a different effect to creaming the fat and mixing in the flour, 
somehow.  Is "rubbing in" not a standard term in American cookery?  it's 
one of the basics in my Brit-influenced habits...

JdH
p.s. and, Stefan, thanks so much for sending me the Spanish recipes!

Jehanne de Huguenin (Jessica Tiffin) * Drachenwald Kingdom Chronicler
Shire of Adamastor, Cape Town, South Africa
melisant at iafrica.com ***  http://users.iafrica.com/m/me/melisant
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