Pastry dough in fridge for 6 days - safe to eat?

redmandarin

Hi, I hope you wise folks can help?

Inspired by this forum and by the Superscrimpers tv programme, I made my first home-made mince pies and cheese crackers, on Christmas Day (I'm trying to become better organised, honest) - and I was very pleased with the result!

Unfortunately I put the rest of the uncooked dough in the fridge instead of the freezer!

I used plain flour, butter and water, as instructed, then split the dough and added grated cheese to the savoury half. It's all gone hard and a darker colour, but is too expensive to throw away. Will it be ok to use it today (New Year's Eve) to make more of the same?

Thanks in advance,
red

Topher

It takes a while for it to get dangerous to eat, but you'll find that as it adopts more greyness, it behaves itself less well, becoming more cardboardy & disappointing as it darkens. Butter preserves stuff better than some other fats, as you'll find in sponge cakes & such. Any pinks or greens indicate you'll need to track it down and kill it dead.

meritaten

Frankly hun - It may still be fairly safe to eat - but I doubt that you would EVER be able to roll it out! The birds will enjoy it so it wont be entirely wasted! I tend to deep fry balls of leftover pastry for them - as I cannot be convinced that uncooked pastry is GOOD for them!

redmandarin

Arrh thanks for your valuable advice.

Tbh, it occurred to me earlier that flour doesn't keep well. If it were gravy I'd have ditched it after a day without eating and the addition of butter to flour probably wouldn't result in much of a preservative effect!

The birds will have a New Year feast then! I'll make some nice fresh dough tomorrow with the butter that's left! And in future I'll freeze any left overs!

Happy New Year to everyone!