You often find old ideas being recycled and this is one of them which I had not seen for many a year. Back in the day (there's that phrase again) we used paste baits but when some of us found out about boilies we started to experiment.
One method which was described to me by a more experienced angler was to put my paste baits in a plastic bag and boil them. In this way I wouldn't harm the bait by cooking it, and it would still put on that skin which magically turned a paste ball into a boilie. So that's how I did it but of course it had it's problems like them all sticking together.
Move on 35 years and whilst fishing the river Ebro in October 2016 (https://thecarpcatcher.co.uk/thecarpcatchers_blog.php?search=river-ebro) it was a variation of this that we used with some success. This time it was a standard 15mm boilie wrapped in paste then wrapped with cling film and sealed. You boil it only long enough to put a light skin on the paste but will withstand casting. The idea is that the paste dissolves around the hookbait giving added attraction. For short range up to 60 yards where you don't need to punch out the rig I find simple paste is good enough.
Where I think this really comes into its own is with a straight boilie, ie you start off with a bit of paste which you roll into a ball and then carefully wrap with cling film. What you end up with is a boilie that has not lost any of it's punch yet it's perfectly cooked and skinned.
Much better than just glugging and it's caught me a few good fish in the last year.