The Beginner's Guide to Making Shortcrust Pastry

Making shortcrust pastry is one of the easiest things in the world! Yes, you can buy it ready made, but save that privilege for the more complicated flaky and puff pastry. It is so easy to do and so quick to make.

You can make any amount of shortcrust pastry you like. The recipe is simple: You measure out half the quantity of fat to the amount of flour.

For example:

Ingredients

50g butter or cooking margerine

100g plain flour

Pinch salt

Water to bind

Greased Pyrex or pie dish (use sunflower oil spread with a little kitchen roll)

I would use this recipe to make the base for a medium quiche. Double the quantities for a pie. If you are making a pastry-based cake such as Bakewell tart, then measure according to the size of the cooking dish.

You don't have to stop at plain white flour, either. Use wholemeal flour for a more nutty flavour and interesting taste. Wholemeal pastry has a tendency to be a little drier.

If you are making a sweet pie, then you might like to add 50g caster sugar to the mix to make the pastry sweeter.

Method:

To make your pastry, put your butter or cooking margarine and flour in a bowl. Chop the butter up into smaller pieces, then get your (clean) fingers in there! Rub the fat and flour together, mushing the butter into the flour until the two are finely mixed together. There should be no large pieces of butter left and the mixture should look like large crumbs.

Add your water a tablespoon at the time and mix with a knife. When the mixture starts to stick together in bigger clumps, then it is probably ready.

Sprinkle flour on a washed surface and flour your hands before gathering the mixture together. Bring it together in a lump and put on the flour. Sprinkle more flour on the rolling pin and the mix.

Knead the dough a few times. Squeeze it together and turn. Squeeze and turn some more. Then pat it into a rough ball if rolling for a round dish. Make it a rough square shape if rolling for a square dish.

Roll the rolling pin over the top. Gently pick up the dough from the top and quarter turn it. If it sticks to the surface, gather it back together in a ball and re-flour the surface. Try again.

Roll and quarter turn, roll and quarter turn until the dough is approximately the right size for your dish, bearing in mind how far you want it to come up the sides.

To pick up the large, flat dough, put the rolling pin at the top and roll the top of the dough over it slightly. Pick it up carefully and transfer to the dish. If a little bit sticks at the stage, carefully prise it away.

Gently lay it over the dish and fit it into the corners. Trim any bits that come over the edge. Because I don't cook for show, I would use these to supplement any shorter walls!

Do You Need to Cook it Before Using?

For a quiche, I wouldn't pre-cook the pastry, but for a pie I would. The lightness of the quiche means that the pastry cooks through quite easily.

To cook it before using it, you can buy cooking beans to place in the bottom of the dish to hold the pastry in place. This is called 'blind baking'.

Pastry is best cooked in a medium oven to give the contents time to cook. I would suggest 190 degrees Centigrade, Gas Mark 4/5 for about 15-20 minutes. You can glaze pastry with a bit of egg or milk if you want a lovely brown finish. Pastry itself doesn't colour up much during cooking unless it burns!

Photo Credit: Rolling Pin by Niina C