Secrets of pastry making

Q: I HAVE been experimenting with pastry making and have not been that successful with my blind baking or my short crust pastry. My husband says to just go with frozen but I do think good home made is best. Any tips?

Our expert is Constantine Laptev, who ran the kitchens in a number of major restaurants before moving into his own gourmet packaged food and catering business.

A: Pastry making is a fine art and many chefs spend years refining their skills in this area so don’t feel bad about the occasional less-than-perfect result.

Given the breadth of detail that I could go into just to cover the basics I have opted to narrow it down to a few key dos and don’ts to get you started. I also recommend you have a look at specialist pastry cookbooks which can be very helpful.

These should help steer you into the right track.

In general:

• Pastry-making is actually chemistry and its success is reliant on all the ingredients interacting as they should so measure with care – this is not the forum for slap dashery.
• Sieve the flour several times to help distribute the gluten content before you add water or butter, eliminating shrinkage due to gluten concentration.
• Less is more with pastry. Handle it as little as possible, especially with your short pastries – think light and delicate with a feathery touch to get a light result – the exact opposite of the way you work the dough for bread or pasta when you want a ‘stronger’ firmer result.
• Keep it cool. Use chilled butter, chilled water and ALWAYS chill the pastry in the fridge for at least an hour EVERY time you rework it. So if you have to make the dough, rest it in the fridge. Then when you roll it into the pastry case, rest it again.
• Be wary of water especially with short pastry. Add only a tiny bit at a time, enough to make the mix crumbly to avoid a soggy result.
• Many recipes call for the addition of a teaspoon of lemon juice – this is again related to the gluten as the acid helps keep pastry tender and less chewy.
• When blind baking, pierce the base with a fork to stop air bubbles forming, line the whole inside of the case with baking paper and line with beans, rice or baking beads. Bake in the middle of a moderate oven on a tin or baker’s slab to help get the heat to cook through the base, then remove the beans and paper when the sides are golden and firming. Brush the bottom and sides with some beaten egg to seal the case and cook for another five or 10 minutes or so until the base is firming nicely – otherwise you may have a soggy-bottomed pie or tart.
• Always cool completely before filling a blind baked pastry case.