Puff Pastry query

kerri_gt

Hi All, i've been very frugal with my dinner tonight, using up a very sorry leak, a slightly sad mushroom and half a tin of lonely mushroom soup to make up a pie (also some whoopsie chicken). I am not a massive pastry fan so I just use puff pastry to top the pie but I can never tell when it's properly cooked.

It goes nice and golden on top but then is doughy underneath where it's touched the pie filling. Now I do realise that the wet filling will affect the pastry but I just wanted to confirm from those with more experience that I'm deff cooking it all right and that's how it should be?

TIA x

booter

I used to have this problem, and eventually realised that my oven temp was too high - it would be brown on top but soggy underneath - bleuuchh . I experimented a little and found that turning the oven down a little and cooking slightly longer sorted it:) HTH

This_Year

It will be gooey where it touches the filling, don't worry

The only way it wouldn't be would be to bake the pastry top separately from the filling and assemble it before serving but then it will still get soggy and not really be a pie lol.

If you're not keen on pastry why not top it with mashed potato instead?

meritaten

two ways of sorting this out! one has been mentioned, which is bake the pastry seperately, the other is to use an oven proof item such as egg cup put in the middle of the pie filling, and the pastry is then 'tented' above the filling. I can remember pies being baked in this way when I was a young lass and it stopped the pastry from getting soggy underneath. (works with shortcrust pastry too).

kerri_gt

Thanks everyone, sounds like I am doing it right Great idea about the egg cup too though to try out in the future.

This Year - I sometimes use the puff pastry for a pie top when I'm whipping up something relatively quick or just fancy a change. It's not that I don't like pastry at all, but I'm not keen on too much which is why I just top the pie, rather than completely surrounding my filling.

Fruball

I was going to suggest you bake it on a baking sheet separately too. That way it will be nice and crisp all the way through.

Just pop it on top when it's all ready!

Or, do individual ones and put one on each plate on top of the filling