Can I use puff pastry instead of shortcrust.....

[Mumdiva99]

My son has cooking tomorrow and has to take shortcrust pastry. I have left it last minute and can only get puff.

I seem to remember my mum telling me if I prick it all over with a fork it will work OK....he's making a lemon meringue pie. Will this be OK?

Please don't ask why they don't just make their own.....I don't know.

Please don't suggest I knock up a batch now.....

Please don't remind me of the epic mum fail on this.....

I know!!

Thanks for your wise advice.

What's he making?

If he blind bakes it with the heavy beads/beans then theoretically it should be ok?

Lemon meringue pie won’t work with puff pastry. Hopefully he could make some at school- just flour butter/marg and water.,

Puff won't work for a lemon meringue base. It's so easy to make shortcrust . Plain flour, butter, water. You can make it by hand in 5 minutes, wrap in cling film and put in thr fridge .

They should be making it from scratch themselves.

It’s only flour with half the weight of butter/ marg. Just measure it out now and he can mix it tomorrow.

Lemon meringue pie

Do you think they will blind bake it? (Not sure I've ever made it myself)

It will puff up. Not really suitable for pie base.
Have you got ingredients to make some now.
I doubt they have time in the 1 hour lesson slot to make pastry and then make it into something!

He will need to blind bake. But I really don’t think it will work with puff. As others have said it will take about 5 minutes to knock it up. Shortcrust is the easiest pastry to make.

Not great honestly - bite the bullet and make some

Give him the money to buy some on the way to school either the ready made stuff or the packet that just needs water adding to.

I always make my shortcrust pastry with lard
It makes it shorter and it's much nicer.

If he blind bakes it it will be fine.

LMP is best with a ginger nut and digestive biscuit combi base, not a lot of help i know but puff pastry will just be chewy / soggy

Supermarkets sell ready made cases, is it too late for a visit

You don't have to spend ages rubbing the fat into the flour. Melt the butter in the microwave, mix in the flour, form into a ball and there's your shortcrust pastry ready to roll.

Nooooo you shouldn't do that. In fact the opposite is the way, pop the butter into the freezer for a bit then grate it into the flour. I made shortcrust yesterday, flour rub cubed cold butter in, mix with milk, it literally took less time than it takes the kettle to boil.

Half fat to flour rub together, drop of cold water and hand mix to a dough wrap in clingfilm and fridge it. Much nicer than bought and so so easy.

Yes this is the way I make shortcrust too. It’s perfect.

Well they should blind bake, but they should also be making the pastry in the first place, but that's modern day school cookery for you.

They could have set the making of the pastry as homework if there isn't time to make it in the lesson (our school cookery lessons were always double length to allow time to do some actual cookery, but it sounds like that's no longer the case?).

Or they could make something that can be done properly in the time allowed. I don't know why learning to cook and feed yourself well on a small budget is given such a low priority in school. So much good work could be done if it is given the attention it deserves

I agree with this. I don't like pastry that much, it's often meh unless freshly made and if I get a pastry based dessert in a cafe etc, I'll usually leave the pastry, but a biscuit base would have been a better solution, or at least an allowable option, especially as they're not actually covering pastry making in the lesson.

Thanks for all the input. As I said making the shortcrust (in this instance) wasn't an option.

Here is the puff pastry LMP.

@Mumdiva99
aaaaw that looks lovely 😊

Looks lush. Enjoy.