How to... make short-crust pastry

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Wed, 14 Oct 2009
Food & Wine | Cooking 101 | Trick of the trade
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1. For a flan tin 25-30cm in diameter, use 200g flour, 100g butter, a pinch of salt and 130-150ml cold water (twice the weight of flour to butter). Photos by Jane Dawber & Gregor Richardson. 2. Sift the flour and salt, and add the chopped butter. Use a pastry cutter, the tips of your fingers or pulse in a food processor to rub the butter into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs. When it cooks, the butter melts, leaving pockets of air that expand and lift the pastry. 3. Mix in the water. 4. The dough should be reasonably soft. 5. Knead briefly until no longer sticky. 6. Wrap it in plastic and leave it to rest for at least 30 minutes or longer. This allows the pastry to relax and helps prevent it shrinking. 7. Prepare a flan ring, preferably with a removable base. Spray with oil, taking care to get into the corners, then sprinkle with flour and shake it round the pan, then tip out. 8. When the pastry has rested, sprinkle the bench or board with flour and roll the dough from the centre up and from the centre down; give it a quarter-turn and repeat. 9. When it is a little bigger than the pan, carefully roll it loosely over the rolling pin and transfer it to the tin. 10. Gently press into the the base of the pan. Chef Pfyl likes to use excess pastry formed into a ball to gently press into the base and the fluted sides. If it is not pushed well into the base of the pan it will shrink into the space as it cooks. Use the rolling pin against the sharp edge of the pan to cut off the excess pastry. Poke the base of the pastry lightly with a fork in several places to prevent it rising when baking blind. 11. Use a cartouche (a round of greaseproof paper) to cover the pastry, then spread rice, beans or clay beads over. Allow to rest another half hour or more to prevent shrinkage. When rested, bake in the oven at 180degC for 15 minutes until pale golden at the edges. Remove the paper and beans or rice and put back for another five minutes at 160degC to dry out.
 

Daniel Pfyl, hospitality management lecturer at Otago Polytechnic, shares some professional techniques to make your cooking easier.

This week, how to make short-crust pastry and bake a pastry case blind.

By half-cooking the pastry before filling it, you avoid a soggy bottom or the filling seeping through.

The secret to making light pastry is to keep the ingredients cold.


If you would like to request a particular technique, please let us know. Write to Trick of the trade, Editorial Features, Otago Daily Times, PO Box 181, Dunedin or email odt.features@odt.co.nz with trick of the trade in the subject line.

To check earlier Trick of the trade columns visit: www.odt.co.nz/news/tags/trick-trade

More information on cooking from Otago Polytechnic can be found on www.otagocookeryl4.blogspot.com

 

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