Basic Pastry

Bored out of my brains waiting for my eldest to be done with her gymnastics practice. One of those bad deals where it’s too far to drive back home but the wait is long if I chose not to go grocery shopping, which is the case today. But there is a silver lining to every cloud and in this case it is a pastry recipe.

The pastry is really easy to make. My mother taught me how to make it and I’ve been making it for decades. Once my mum figured out that my pastry tasted the best I was stuck for life making pastry! I remember once being dragged to the Indian Consulate in Kandy, Sri Lanka to demonstrate how I made the pastry!! Eventually, I figured out that the only reason my pastry turned out well was because I had cold hands. As I said above there is always a silver lining to a cloud.

So the trick is keep everything super cold. If you have regular hands that means you need to stick them in some ice to keep them cold while you are making the pastry. Alternatively you could use a food processor or a pastry thingy but the pastry will never taste as good as if you made it by hand. I bought an expensive food processor specifically to make pastry and returned it within a couple of days because the pastry was not up to par. 

This amount will make the base for a 9” tart. For something bigger or a thicker crust use 8 oz. of flour.

Ingredients:

           6 oz     Flour

           3 oz     Cold butter

           ¼ tsp.  Salt

                      Cold Water

Method:

Put the flour and salt into a bowl and mix. Cut the butter up into small pieces and put it in with the flour.

If you need to keep the bowl cool (because you live in the tropics or have super warm hands) put it in an ice bed. Keeping it all cool is the key to good flaky pastry.

Now rub the butter into the flour using the tips of your fingers. It’s a bit difficult to explain how to rub the butter in but I’ll give it a try. First mix the butter in so that it is all coated with flour. Then get your hand(s) coated in the flour. Pick up some butter and flour with your fingers and balance it on your four fingers. Using your thumb rub the butter off back into the bowl. If you are unsure as to how to do this try it without anything in your hand. Just rub your four finger tips, starting at your pinky and moving up to your pointing finger, with the tip of your thumb. This is the action you need to use but with flour and butter in between. The pieces of butter will become smaller and smaller until you have something that looks like this. (Commonly called "looks like breadcrumbs").

Don’t forget to keep your hands cold. If you feel like the butter is melting in your hands then you are too warm and your pastry won’t be light and fluffy.

Next you need to add some water. Add a little bit at a time and stir it well into the flour. You might consider using a knife to do this. At some point you will notice that the pastry starts lumping together. At this point stick in your hand and try forming the pastry into a ball. It should stick nicely together but not be sticky. Very carefully form a nice ball. 

Cover in cling wrap and stick it in the fridge to rest. Apparently dough needs to rest, but I have not figured out why yet!!

Once it's rested use it to make something like this: