Urgent pastry advice.

tomstickland

I made 2 fruit pies last week that worked really well.
I've just made another one. I added ever so slightly too much water to the pastry mix. I've just baked it for half an hour. The outside edge is nice and hard, but the pastry in the middle is a bit soft and doughy, even though it's yellow on top. Should I cook it for longer?

ben500

I'd say your on a loser with this batch to be honest, the extra water has prevented the base of the pastry cooking properly you see this often with mass produced fruit pies where the pastry has a glassy kind of look to it, best to stick to tried and tested half, half method half fat to flour half sugar to fat if sweet omit sugar if savoury, best pastry is made using half lard or shortening and half butter for the fat content, never over roll the pastry.

tomstickland

I've just put it back in for another 15 minutes and it seems to have sorted itself!
I'll let it cool and cut another test slice.

The recipe I used is off the Be-Ro flour site and I know it works. When I say too much water, it was just that last cm from the bottom of a glass.

jessicamb

tomstickland wrote:

I've just put it back in for another 15 minutes and it seems to have sorted itself!
I'll let it cool and cut another test slice.

The recipe I used is off the Be-Ro flour site and I know it works. When I say too much water, it was just that last cm from the bottom of a glass.

I find pastry is very sensitive to the amount of water put in, especially when I am lazy and put it in the food processor

I'd bung it back in the oven rather than waste it but it might not be as good.

ben500

Sorry maybe a little misleading of me, I didn't mean to bin it just that I didn't think you would get a much better result by cooking more.

squeaky

Next time - if your flour feels a bit too sticky, just dust the board really well with flour as you roll it out, or just add a little more flour and knead for a few moments longer.