The perils of pastry-making | Tips | Mud Foods (2024)

FAQs

What are the common problems in making pastry products? ›

General rules

Measure the ingredients carefully. Use good quality flour. Mix together the flour and salt by sieving. Keep everything as cool as possible otherwise the fat may melt which would spoil the finished dish.

Why is your cooked pastry tough? This occurs when too little fat and too much liquid are added. Be careful not to overhandle the dough and to make sure the oven is hot.

If the dough is overworked, it can become tough and difficult to roll out. This can happen if the dough is kneaded too much or if too much flour is added during the rolling process. Shortcrust pastry can shrink during baking if it's not properly chilled beforehand or if it's rolled too thin.

When consumed regularly, it can potentially lead to many health issues. In addition to being linked with type 2 diabetes, it can also cause excess belly fat (not to mention obesity), and heart disease. Here's the thing about sugar. You get loads of calories, but zero essential nutrients.

The first golden rule of making pastry; keep the ingredients, the bowl and the hands as cool as possible.

Plain flours are best for pastry because their gluten strands are relaxed while the stronger gluten in bread flours can cause pastry to shrink back. Warm pastry cooked in an oven that was not pre-heated can collapse as its water evaporates before the pastry cooks and hardens.

Richard's solution: The trouble with pastry is that you need to be accurate; too much water and you're left with shrunken, tough pastry, too little and it stays dry and crumbly. When adding the water to the butter and flour, use very cold water and add it a tablespoonful at a time.

Unbleached all-purpose flour is typically chosen for standard pie crusts. It must be handled appropriately to yield a crust that is both tender and flaky. Too much flour can create a tough or dry crust; not enough may flour may lead to a wet crust that shrinks upon baking.

Why don't you knead pie crust? ›

You knead bread dough to develop and stretch the gluten. In pie crust, you don't want gluten to form so you don't want to mix too much and overwork the dough.

Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes, or up to overnight. Tip: Chilling hardens the fat in the dough, which will help the crust maintain its structure as it bakes. And the short rest before rolling relaxes the dough's gluten, helping prevent a tough crust.

The best fat for pastry-making

Unless you don't eat dairy, we recommend butter for flavour and texture. You can also try a 50/50 split between butter and lard, which works well for savoury recipes like quiches. Make sure your butter is really cold when you rub it in to the flour.

Pastry being soggy in the middle is a result of the pastry being undercooked. Don't place the pastry on too high a shelf in the oven. One way to prevent soggy bottom pastry is to blind bake the pastry – This means partially or completely bake the pastry before adding the filling.

At its most basic, pastry is no more than 2 parts flour and 1 part fat but the trouble is that there are just so many things that can go wrong – tricky spots where the wrong step can see your pastry go soggy, tooth-snappingly tough or just fall apart. That's why you need technique.

Oven temperature too low; cold pastry put over hot filling; too much liquid in filling or too little filling. Insufficient liquid; too little kneading; liquid not boiling when added to flour. liquid not boiling when added to flour, too much liquid, dough not cooked enough to set required shape.