To make a shorte paest for tart is a traditional Tudor recipe for a classic rich shortcrust pastry made with a blend of flour, butter, egg yolks and saffron bound with a little water. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Tudor version of: To make a shorte paest for tart.
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To make a shorte paest for tart: a classic Tudor British recipe for a traditional pastry dough made from a flour, egg yolk and salt blend flavoured and coloured with saffron that's bound with water which has a crumbly texture when baked.
To make ſhorte paeſt for tarte.
Take fryne floure and a curſey of fayre water and a dyſche of ſwete butter and a lyttel ſaffron, and the yolckes of two egges and make it thynne and as tender as ye maye.
Modern Redaction
Many authors have discussed what precisely a 'curtesy' refers to in this recipes. Some have suggested as much liquid as a 'quart'. But the ingredients for this pastry are exactly the same as a modern rich shortcrust pastry (flour, eggs, and butter) with the addition of saffron to give colour. Modern pastries (for about 250g flour) would only have about 2 tbsp chilled water added, just enough to bind. So I am assuming that 'courtesy' means either 'the requisite amount' or even just 'a small amount'.
You can make this with plain flour, but Elizabethan flour was much more coarsely ground that modern flours, so to achieve something more like the original texture I suggest mixing plain flour with coarse whole wheat flour.
Whisk the egg yolk and saffron together with 1 tbsp of the water. Set aside to infuse for 10 minutes.
Combine the flours in a bowl, dice the butter and add to the flours then rub in with your fingertips until the mixture comes together and resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolk and saffron mix and work into the flour and butter mix.
Now add the remaining cold water, a little at a time, and work together until the mixture comes together as a dough. Cover this with clingfilm and chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes before rolling and using.
