Shortcrust Pastry

Pastry is generally the bread in the sandwich, the potato in the stew, the pasta in the lasagne. It carries the main item, the filling, the topping. It balances flavour, and makes it easy to eat! (Just imagine a mince pie without the pie!) It's a filler, too, making a meal out of a few scraps of meat or vegetables.

Like many things in the baking world, pastry is one of the simplest, and one of the things that people think they can't do. And they're wrong.

The food processor has made things a lot easier, but it is still a simple task to make pastry entirely by hand. The thing is, there are very few rules, but you MUST keep them.

1 Keep everything cold

2 Weigh accurately

3 Work quickly

4 Use as little water as possible

Basic ingredients are plain flour (because you don't want it to rise) and fat.

Fat can come in many guises, and all will work, but some better than others.

Commercial bakeries brag about using "all butter" in their recipes, as though this is the magic touch, yet I find that all butter pastry is really over-rich.

Ingredients for a medium flan case, or 12 tartlets:

8 oz plain flour

2 oz cold salted butter, cut into chunks

2 oz lard or vegetable shortening cut into chunks

a little ice cold water

Method - for the processor

Put the flour and half the butter and half the lard or vegetable shortening into the bowl of the processor, and whizz on high speed for a minute. Keep the machine turning and add the rest of the fat a bit at a time. The mixture should look like rough sand. If you can see big pieces of fat, whizz again until they mix in.

Reduce the processor speed to medium and add the water, A TEASPOON AT A TIME. You want the least amount of water possible. Don't RUSH. Watch the mix. If it clumps together, stop the machine. If the grains are still separate add another half teaspoon of water, and repeat until you have the beginnings of a ball of dough.

Method - for Hand Mixing

Put the flour into a large bowl with all the fat. Make sure your hands are COLD.

With just your fingertips roll the fat and the flour together. You are trying to coat each grain of flour with fat. This stops too much gluten developing, which would turn your pastry tough! This process is called rubbing in.

You can also use a pastry cutter, or two knives, to help with the process, especially if your hands are a bit warm.

In the end you will have a bowl with a mixture of flour and fat, that looks rather like a bowl of breadcrumbs. Now sprinkle in a teaspoon of iced water, and stir with a fork. If it clumps together, stop adding water. If the grains are still separate add another half teaspoon of water, and repeat until you have the beginnings of a ball of dough.

For both methods

Remove from the processor or your bowl, put on a lightly floured surface, and push the dough together till it forms a cohesive ball. THIS IS NOT KNEADING; YOU DO NOT KNEAD PASTRY. Think of your pastry as a pet, and be gentle with it!

If it's a hot day, or you have a hot kitchen, wrap the ball of dough in cling-film and chill the pastry for about 10 minutes, but otherwise it is fine to use it freshly made. Press the pastry out into the rough shape you need (i.e. round for a flan tin, oblong for cutting out tartlet shapes.

Lightly flour a rolling pin and start to roll. After few rolls turn the pastry a quarter turn. Keep rolling and turning the pastry until it’s the thickness you need (slighter thicker for a flan case than for tartlets - the recipe should tell you what thickness you need.

I like to leave my rolled out pastry covered with a damp tea towel for a few minute, to reduce shrinkage, but it's not absolutely necessary.

Use as directed in your recipe!

There are variations, adding sugar and egg for a special sweet pastry, or cheese for a savoury one (I've even got one that includes Marmite!), but the process is what's important!