Pastry help

mumtosix

I made short crust pastry yesterday for my pie using Trex; mixed flour, salt & fat into bread crumbs then added iced water to make dough. I put the Dough in the fridge for about 1 hr till I needed it. Rolled it out but it just sort of crumbled. Managed to put on top of pie & cooked. Looked ok when it came out of the oven. It tasted ok but sort of melted in the mouth - what did I do wrong? His can I improve my pastry baking skills?

mmmsnow

It could be a couple of things - you may need to use a drop or two more water or it could be that you've handled the dough too much and it's warmed up. When I make pastry, I try to touch it as little as possible.

Catmom

Hi there
Ive not used Trex myself, but DD swears by it (after reading one of the threads on here). However she also says that it makes a very crumbly mix, a bit like cookie dough. I think you just have to "cobble" it together, without too much rolling - it looks quite rustic that way
It does make "melt in the mouth" pastry though

ragz_2

I often make trex pastry for mincepies, it does rather melt in the mouth. Not sure why it crumbled though, my trex pastry is often quite sticky... did you use enough? What quantity did you use?

mumtosix

Thanks for replies I used 165g plain flour, 115g fat & approx 2-3 tbsp of water. I didn't handle it too much. Would a marg/lard mix be better? Although no one complained!

Candy53

I always use block marg, and self raising flour, then when rubbed in, and at the crumbly stage I mix water into it. It makes a lovely tasting crust, and doesn't fall apart when rolled out.

Candy

Justamum

mumtosix wrote: »

Thanks for replies I used 165g plain flour, 115g fat & approx 2-3 tbsp of water. I didn't handle it too much. Would a marg/lard mix be better? Although no one complained!

My first thought when you said you had crumbly melt-in-the-mouth pastry was that you'd made it very short. Looking at your recipe I would say you had. Normal shortcrust uses half fat to flour, so for 165g of flour you would use 82.5g of fat. I would say that using the amount of fat you have you wouldn't really have needed the extra water. However, by using such a high proportion of fat it makes it very difficult to roll out - if I make a pastry with a higher proportion of fat I normally plop it into the baking dish and spread it out using my knuckles (I'd normally make this type for a flan so no top would be needed).

McKneff

Half fat to flour is the norm, so I would aslo say that you had used too much Trex or not enough flour.

Personally I use half marg and half lard for the fat content.

hilstep2000

I have made shortcrust pastry the way I was taught in domestic science. Half fat to flour, so 8oz flour, 4oz fat. Broken into 2oz marg and 2oz lard. Bind together with water, rest for an hour. Always works for me.

mumtosix

Thanks! Will try a different mix next time. Hopefully it won't be too short next time.

Gigervamp

The normal ratio doesn't work with Trex. It does actually say on the packet that you need to use 20% less fat than you would normally.