Sweet Shortcrust Pastry
Rich, buttery, slightly sweet, flaky and melt in the mouth, this Sweet Shortcrust Pastry is ideal for sweet pies and tarts. It is made in a flash (using a food processor or by hand) and it freezes well, either before cooking or after.
Ingredients
- 300g plain/all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 25g icing sugar
- ¼ teaspoon fine salt
- 180g unsalted butter, very cold, cut into cubes
- 80g fridge cold beaten eggs – you will need 2 eggs. (See Recipe Notes)
Instructions
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Collect together your equipment (see Recipe Notes below) and ingredients.
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Weigh the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt into the food processor and pulse to mix. Alternatively weigh it into a mixing bowl and stir to mix.
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Either using the pulse function on your food processor or using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until they resemble fine bread crumbs
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With the processor running, slowly add the very cold beaten eggs until the mixture just comes together. Or add the beaten egg gradually using a knife to incorporate it into the flour mixture. Stop when it nearly all comes together.
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Take out of the food processor or mixing bowl and push (rather than knead) very gently with your hands to bring the dough together. Kneading stretches the gluten in the flour and will make your pastry tough, so handle it as little possible.
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Press into the same shape as you wish to roll the pastry but smaller than the actual size. For example, if you will be rolling it to line a 20cm/8 inch round pastry dish, shape into roughly a 15cm/6inch round shape.
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Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
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It is very important not to miss the refrigeration steps out as they help to prevent the pastry from shrinking when cooking.
Recipe Notes
Equipment
- kitchen scales and measuring spoons
- food processor or mixing bowl and sieve
- rolling pin
Tin sizes:
If making pastry using the quantities above I would expect to:
- line 2 x 20cm/8 inch flan tins, and possibly
- line and top 1 x 20cm/8 inch flan tins
Eggs:
Use fridge cold beaten eggs. You can use
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- 2 x whole beaten eggs and use the remaining egg as egg wash
- 1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk. Use the remaining egg white as egg wash
- 1 whole egg and 1 egg white. Use the remaining egg yolk as egg wash
- when you first start making pastry, it is hard to know when you have added enough liquid. Practice makes perfect, but as a guide, I find that 80g or 5 x 15ml tablespoons of beaten egg is sufficient for the quantities in the recipe below. If you are scaling the recipe up or down, this means that for every 100g flour, you need roughly 27g beaten egg