Shortcrust Pastry

Shortcrust pastry is one of the easiest pastries to make and handy for a variety of sweet and savoury pies and dishes.  Its basically just flour, fat and water, but makes a lovely buttery pastry. The basic ratio of shortcrust pastry is a 2:1 ratio of flour to fat. I also add an egg usually for added richness.


Ingredients

200g plain flour

pinch of salt

100g butter (like Kerry gold, if you use salted butter you don't need to add extra salt)

1 egg yokes

_{1 tbsp water}

Method

1. Sift the flour into a bowl, add the salt. Cut up the butter into small cubes and rub into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. This technique is important because binding the fat with the flour in this way coats the flour and prevents the development of gluten which will make a tough pastry. Use a good quality butter like Kerry gold salted butter. I find a good quality butter makes much better and richer short crust pastry than lard or margarine does. Make sure the butter is chilled, if it is soft it will melt when mixing and result in a greasy and misshapen pastry.
2. Next using a fork mix in the egg and water until it holds together and forms a ball. Add the eggs one at a time, if they are large eggs, one might be all you need. So add each liquid one by one to avoid adding too much liquid. You may not even need to add water.
3. Roll the dough out on a clean floured surface and kneed gentle. Do not overwork or the pasty will get tough.
4. Wrap dough in clingfilm and chill for at least 30 minutes before using. 

Sweet Shortcrust pastry

If you want a sweet pastry, use the same ingredients and method as above but add in 50g of caster sugar.