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Making pastry
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This video helped me become a little more confident rolling the pastry out into the dish - i like the way he uses the rolling pin to cut the edges off neatly: http://uktv.co.uk/food/item/aid/633881/displayVideo/hi
This video is good too: http://uktv.co.uk/food/item/aid/587161/displayVideo/hi
It's always nice to watch someone else do it first! They make it look so easy....0 -
My mum always said you can make great cakes or great pastry, but not both. I make great cakes, she makes great pastry, mine's always ard.I ave a dodgy H, so sometimes I will sound dead common, on occasion dead stupid and rarely, pig ignorant. Sometimes I may be these things, but I will always blame it on my dodgy H.
Sorry, I'm a bit of a grumble weed today, no offence intended ... well it might be, but I'll be sorry.0 -
My tips for pastry are firstly to keep everything COLD - put your flour in the freezer (my mother used to store it there) and fat in the fridge for a few hours before using them. Wash hands in cold water for a few minutes before rubbing fat & flour together. Never used a FP for mine, but I don't suppose you need to cool that!
I add a squeeze of lemon juice with my COLD water, and sometimes use fizzy water to make the pastry lighter. Handle your pastry as little as possible, which includes rolling and re-rolling. Discard the last little scraps of pastry rather than rolling them out too many times! (or do what I do and put them on a separate tray in the oven for snacks later on - you can add grated cheese or sugar if you want.)
You don't need to brush them with beaten egg, though that does make them go nice and glossy. A bit of milk brushed on evenly is adequate to help them brown nicely.Trust me - I'm NOT a doctor!0 -
Use Trex until you get the hang of it; seriously, tis wonderful stuff. This is the recipe I use:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/12/p-p-p-pie_crust_and_its_p-p-p-perfect/
And I was previously a total duffer at making pastry. The above recipe works like a dream and after tackling it successfully a few times my pastry confidence increased hugely and I can now do all butter pastry reasonably well.
And tell your OH to make his own d*mn pies in future;)0 -
I make fantastic pastry....of course I dont so much MAKE it as roll it out of the jus roll packet :rotfl: DH always lovingly refers to my bona fide home made pastry as dried out play dough so I gave up after trying everything I could to make it...on the plus side Im told warm hands, warm heart, yeah THAT must be the problem!!0
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gravitytolls wrote: »My mum always said you can make great cakes or great pastry, but not both. I make great cakes, she makes great pastry, mine's always ard.
There is some truth in this, people with warm hands can make good bread/cakes and people with cold hands make good pastry.A kind word lasts a minute, a skelped erse is sair for a day.0 -
You can buy perfectly good chilled pastry in the supermarkets, just roll it out gently using the minimum of flour for dusting (dusting flour incorporates into the pastry and changes the proportions of the ingredients).A kind word lasts a minute, a skelped erse is sair for a day.0
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I use 8oz Flour, 4 oz Stork for Pastry, pinch of salt and water.
You want to touch it as little as possible!!!!
I grate the stork straight from the fridge into the seived flour and salt... using my fingertips to make it into breadcrumbs (grating makes this faster), I add 2 tbls of ice water at a time and loosly mix and just keep adding a little at a time until is stick together.
Bung it in the fridge for 30 minutes!
I made 2 Chicken pies yesterday... pastry was perfect!
Same batch of pastry was used for Apple and Blackberry Pie that evening... disaster! Too much handling and it went dry and crumbly!!
Although if it's dry I add a drop of water by wetting my hands and quickly kneading the pastry!
Jx
Ps. I can't bake very well at all!!! My pastry... it's good!We spend money we don't have, on things that we don't need, to impress people we don't like. I don't and I'm happy!:dance: Mortgage Free Wannabe :dance:Overpayments Made: £5400 - Interest Saved: £11,550 - Months Saved: 240 -
Hi Thistledome
try not to beat yourself up :A Pastry seems to be one of those things which a lot of people just can't get right. I would try again once more, if not successful then leave it for a while, and try in a few weeks or months. Sometimes life is just too short to worry about making everything from scratch!
Some linkies to help you outI'm not even going to start giving you tips as I'm no expert
Making pastry
Short pastry
the best mince pie pastry ever
I want to make puff pastry - am i mad?
Disasterous pastry threads to help you feel better!:rotfl:(Ok, i'm too tired to type up 8 titles so numbered them, does that make me a bad person?!?!;))
1 ,
2.
3,
4,
5,
6
7
8
I'll merge this with the first link later on - and really don't worry:A
ZipA little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men :cool:
Norn Iron club member #3800 -
Use Trex until you get the hang of it; seriously, tis wonderful stuff. This is the recipe I use:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/12/p-p-p-pie_crust_and_its_p-p-p-perfect/
And I was previously a total duffer at making pastry. The above recipe works like a dream and after tackling it successfully a few times my pastry confidence increased hugely and I can now do all butter pastry reasonably well.
And tell your OH to make his own d*mn pies in future;)
I get stuck on the cups bit with american recipes. Can you just use any size cup and is all purpose flour plain or SR? Thanks0
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