December 9: National Pastry Day

Today is National Pastry Day. Some things you might not know about pastry.

1. Pastry is flour mixed with some kind of fat or shortening, Water and flavouring, such as Salt. These basic ingredients make pies, turnovers, strudel, cream puffs, pasties and many more variations.
2. The ancient Egyptians made pastry. They made Baklava and Filo from grain meal flavored with Honey, fruits and spices.
3. The Greeks and Romans made it, too, but they used liquid oil rather than Butter. The Romans made pastry to cover meats to keep the juices in while cooking, but it wasn't a meat pie as we know it – they'd throw the pastry away when the meat was cooked. They did make small pastries to eat at banquets, usually containing Eggs or small birds.
4. Pastries were first brought to Europe during the Muslim invasion of the 7th century.
5. Two of the basic types of pastry are short crust and puff pastry. Short-crust pastry is one part fat to two of flour. The fat is rubbed into the flour, a little water is added, and the mixture is pressed together to make a dough.
6. Puff pastry is a little more complicated. Equal proportions of butter to flour are used. About a fifth of the butter is added to the flour, and water is added to make a dough. The dough is rolled out and butter placed in the middle of the dough sheet, which is folded over it. It is then rolled out again and foled in three. This is known as a “turn”. The making of the pastry will involve at least four turns, each with a rest in between. The result is a dough with thin, even layers of fat between layers of dough; air pockets get trapped in the layers. The best puff pastry will have up to 240 layers.
7. Other variations include flaky or rough puff pastries, which have fat-to-flour ratios that are higher than that of short-crust but lower than that of puff pastry. It is used with meat dishes such as beef Wellington. Choux pastry is made by heating water and butter together, mixing it with flour, and adding eggs. The paste is soft and supple and used to make cream puffs and Chocolate eclairs. In England, there's hot-water crust: water and lard heated to the boiling point and mixed with flour, used to make pork pies, and suet crust, made of flour, beef suet, and water, used for suet puddings and dumplings.
8. How is pastry different from Bread, which is also made from flour and water? Aside from bread often also having yeast in it, there is more fat in pastry. When wheat flour is mixed with water and kneaded into dough, it develops strands of gluten, which is what makes bread dough touch and elastic. The extra fat slows this process down.
9. Making pastry is such an art that a special branch of cookery has developed around it. A pastry chef or pâtissier specialises in flour and sugar confections which can be extremely delicate and elaborate.
10. There was even a war fought over pastry. In 1838, during a brief conflict between Mexico and France, a French pastry chef claimed that Mexican soldiers had damaged his restaurant. The Mexican government refused to pay damages. This angered the French, who sent a fleet to Veracruz and fired on the fortress outside the harbour. They occupied the city for almost a year, until Great Britain stepped in to mediate and persuaded Mexico to pay 600,000 pesos for the damages.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

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