Is it possible to be incapable of making SC pastry?

[Yarboosucks]

I want to make really short, melt in the mouth pastry for DS (mince pies). My pastry is, um, hard.

Can anyone advise me on a guaranteed recipe / method that will enable me to look like a competent baker?

I could never get pastry right until I started using a food processor. Now, it never goes wrong! For mince pies, I use half the quantity of butter to flour, add a tablespoon of caster sugar and an egg yolk and about 2 tablespoons of cold water. Using the food processor, you keep it whizzing until the pastry comes together in a ball, then let it rest wrapped in clingfilm in the fridge for about 30 mins (sometimes an hour).

Thanks all. The latest batch are as I feared - by worse. I left something out of the pastry. Never before has a mince pie been so hard and bland.

You know when you DC bring home offerings from home economics and you have to eat it, pretend to enjoy it whilst praying the teacher is a sticker for hand washing.... Well I am going to give my DS a sneak preview of the joy. He will eat one of this batch.

My hands are too warm for pastry making. Must try the greaseproof paper method.

You need the Orlando Murrin Good Food recipe as others have mentioned already - ridiculously short pastry, you don’t/can’t even roll it out, just squidge and flatten a ball into each tart case. I do normally leave off the icing sugar dusting he suggests though, as they are pretty sweet.

Replace caster sugar with icing sugar. Handle as little as possible, use a food processor if available. Keep chilled for 30 mins. When made into pies. Etc. Put back into fridge and chill for ten mins.

8oz of plain flour
2 oz of lard
2 oz of unsalted butter.

crumble it all together, then press with your hand, ONLY add water if you need to, but dont let it get too wet/sticky.

wrap it in cling film, let it rest for a while.

After that, its minimal working, but roll it fairly thin

I will post my DMIL's pastry recipe here. Joy - you can work it with your hands as much as you like!!

YANBU. I am incapable. I made a pie recently that we are referring to as Franken-pie. Ugly but tasted nice!

See here. Never fails!

I think I should have made twice as much pastry as the recipe said (similar to recipes on this thread) then binned the rubbish edgy bits...

My sister is great at making pies, it's very galling.

Oooh I went on a pastry course as mine was so bad

I'd guess peoples pastry goes hard because they over handle it

Golden rules were

Measure accurately
Handle as little as possible
Rest it in the fridge as long as possible
Roll between two sheets of parchment / greaseproof paper- prevents sticking to rolling pin or incorporating more flour from your pin or surface into the pastry. Can also be stored in the fridge between the two sheets

I follow Lorraine Pascales recipe but bung it all in food processor to keep it cold. Her recipe calls for an egg yolk to replace some of the cold water

Also always save some raw pastry so you can patch it up after cooking ig there are any cracks

This is the best recipe ever - i have been using it for over 25 years! I also blitz some fresh cranberries and mix into the mincemeat.

for sweet pies I use Self Raising flour...I know it's wrong, but my mother uses it and makes the best pastry ever

I don't use lard, I use butter or that block margarine , use one and a half times flour to fat
chop the fat into small pieces and then rub it in gently to the flour, use a big bowl and get the mix up in the air and let it fall back to the bowl and make sure to use all the flour, it's easy to just use the top layer
If you want it sweet then stir in two or three tbs of sieved icing sugar once there are no big globs of fat and it all looks like crumbs.

then I use an egg or two egg yolks depending if I cba making plans for egg whites

cut that through the flour with a knife and press gently together...no kneading or excessive squeezing

let it rest in the fridge and then roll it out on a lightly dusted surface

too much water/working/extra flour will give you pastry like cardboard.

I had a revelation recently courtesy of an American cookbook- when rubbing the butter into the flour, don’t rub it to fine breadcrumbs, just until the butter is pea sized. Then add the water and bring it together with a knife. Rest for at least 30 min in the fridge. Makes super flaky pastry.

Another option is using tart paste- doesn’t matter so much if your hands are hot. I make pate sucree or pâté sable. Sucree is easier to handle, more robust. Sable is very very short- like shortbread short. Tastes AMAZING but it’s pretty fragile.

My cakes are shit but I can do pastry

Good housekeeping food processor one.

125g cubed butter to 250 g flour - pulse, add cold water up to 4 tbs, pulse till becomes dough, leave to rest 30 mins or longer, bring up to room temp.

Search bbc good food for Paul Hollywood's mince pies. I know he's a twat but they are awesome

Also use a food processor

Serious Eats has two different recipes - both work really well. One requires a food processor and the other just your fingers.

Buy it. I can't make good pastry - my hands are just too warm. It's perfectly fine to just buy it.

In your efforts to not handle it too much are you adding too much water?
Try and add a bit less and don’t be afraid to squidge it together.

Use a Food processor.

Chill in fridge before rolling (and again between each rolling out).

Roll out between cling film instead of flour. Too much flour hardens the pastry.

I go by BBC good food recipe.

Or I use Jamie oliver recipe.
500g plain flour
100g icing sugar
250g butter unsalted
3 eggs and a dash of milk.

They Jamie oliver recipe makes a reslly lovely crumbly pastry.