Short pastry

Julie67

My mum makes the best pastry in the world and swears by lard. Also she says you have to be in a good mood when you make it otherwise your pastry suffers:D

angeltreats

My mum always used half fat to flour and she used half Cookeen and half Echo (which I think is half vegetable shortening and half margarine). Her pastry was fantastic, lovely and crumbly to eat but dead easy to roll out.

I like to use either half lard, half butter or all margarine and I agree with Alibobsy's gran in that it's better to make the pastry slightly wetter than you'd want it and then the flour from your surface and rolling pin will dry it up a bit.

I really struggle sometimes with sweet pastry though, the sugar just seems to make it that much harder to work with.

Justamum

I use Pure margarine. If I've got any in I'll use half white vegetable fat. Cold hands make the best pastry. My husband loves my pastry, but having tasted the cardboard which MIL makes I'm not really surprised. She must be the only Greek woman alive who can't cook!

HelenKA_2

I do half marg and half trex. Chop up the fat in the flour bowl roughly till smallish pieces then put the whole thing in the freezer for 10 mins - set the timer! - then rub in quickly using finger tips and hopefully cool hands before gradually forking in v cold water. As soon as good lumps appear use your hand to bring it together and give only a very quick mauling before putting in a bag in the fridge. can keep here for 24-28 hrs or can be frozen at this stage. Very pliable pastry can be tarted up for sweetness or savoury-ness before adding water.

Try orange zest and juice
cheese and grated apple
beef stock cube

minimacka

Thank you for all your replies, the pastry was ok but a little bland so i will try one of the other tried and tested recipes on here. Funnily enough the hairy bikers made there pastry on the show tonight lol.

x

minimacka

Justamum wrote: »

You might find adding a little bit more water will make it easier to roll out - I'm assuming that's the problem?

I did add some more water and it made it a little easier to roll out, i thought it looked really nice pastry and didnt think it would be short oh well.

I will keep on trying.

x

valk_scot

Modern kitchens are a lot warmer than our grannies' kitchens, that's the difference. The heat causes the fat to turn to oil and the pastry falls to bits. Try chilling everything....ingredients, water, even the flour bag in the fridge for half an hour. Run your hands under the cold tap before handling it and only use your fingertips to rub fat in, as lightly as possible. If you have a glass or china rolling pin, chill that too. And roll your pastry straight from the fridge. In the old days (and in some posh kitchens today) you had a marble slab to roll pastry out on.

Justamum

valk_scot wrote: »

In the old days (and in some posh kitchens today) you had a marble slab to roll pastry out on.

Not that posh - I used to have one! I can't remember what happened to it over my many moves abroad and back over the years. It matched my marble rolling pin.

angeltreats

I don't have a marble slab but I do have a granite worktop that's always cold to the touch and I roll the pastry out on that.

My friend has a glass chopping board thing, I think it's called a worktop saver, and it's quite big, maybe A3 size. Something like that might be good for rolling pastry.

Kazipoo

There seems to be all these old wives tales about how best to make pastry, and what temperature your hands need to be, and putting it in the fridge etc, but I have never listened to any of them.

My recipe is the same as angeltreats, half fat to flour. If I need 8oz pastry, I use 8oz plain flour, 2oz marg and 2oz lard. I rub the fat in until its breadcrumbs, and bang the bowl to make sure I haven't left any large lumps of fat, then add enough water to make the dough pliable but not sticky. I immediately roll it out and use the same mixture whether it is for sweet or savoury. I have never had any complaints and my cooked pastry is always nice and crumbly!