Shortcrust Pastry

As the famous expression goes “winter is coming…” well in the UK at least, so the recipe that we need to equip ourselves with is one of pastry. While puff is massively delicious and crisp it is a bit of a pain to make when you're in a rush. To combat this shortcrust is your man, ready in half the time with a more grown up crumbly and substantial texture. The health conscious can also breathe a sigh of relief because it’s got half the fat of puff pastry too! With your weapon of pastry against the war on the cold winter weather the world is your oyster - literally when combined in a beef and oyster pie or a sweet tart. The prospect of winter without a pie is like summer without a BBQ so what are you waiting for? Start putting delicious things in/on/below homemade short crust pastry now!

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  What you need:
  

  200 g of flour
  100 g of unsalted butter
  50 ml of water
  A big-ish pinch of salt
  
  
  

  How to make it:
  

  There are two ways to make this pastry; by hand or with a fancy food processor. I don’t have a food processor primarily due to a lack of funds and secondly a lack of space. I will initially talk through how I made it by hand then I will discuss how I could have made it by machine.
  
  By hand- 
  
  

  1. Have your butter very cold, ideally frozen, and using a cheese grater grate it coarsely. Once grated cover with cling film and freeze once more.
  2. While the butter is freezing place 50 ml of water into the fridge to cool.
  3. After 15 -20 minutes in the freezer take out the butter and add it to bowl with your flour and combined salt. Quickly using your fingers “rub in” the butter to the flour. You do not want the butter to melt into the flour – this will ruin its crumbly texture and make it more flexible and cardboard like. (Through initially grating the butter and refreezing it we have increased the surface area of the butter so that it “rubs into the flour” a lot quicker.)
     What do I mean by “rub in the butter”? Using your thumb and forefingers pick up small amounts of flour and butter and rub them together until the butter in incorporated into the flour and the mix looks like breadcrumbs –see images VI and VII. We use our thumb and forefingers rather than our whole hands because the extremities are colder (due to the high surface area of our fingers) making it less likely for the all-important butter to melt.
  4. Working quickly add just under the 50 ml of cold water and mix the dough with your hands making sure all of the mixture comes into contact with the water. The dough now should be sticking together and you should be able to form a loose ball. If you cannot form a ball add the rest of the cold water and mix again. 
  5. Once you have formed a ball knead it gently for 30 seconds then wrap in cling film and refrigerate, for a minimum of 30 minutes before use.

  
  Using a food processor-
  
  

  1. Place the cold butter and flour with the salt into the food processor and pulse the blade until you get a breadcrumb texture. 
  2. Add your “breadcrumbs” to a big bowl and add in just under 50 ml of cold water and repeat the process as described above in stages 4 and 5.

  
  My advice is to get practising now for a few pie and tart recipes that are likely to be uploaded over the coming winter months.