I am on the cusp of becoming moderately annoyed with my shrinking pastry.

[Slubberdegullion]

WHY doe s it always shrink on me? WHY WHY GODDAMIT?

I have read ALL the mn threads on pastry (almost) and have fully and completely grasped the need for coldness and minimal handling.

Here is what I did today.

Cold cold water from the tap plus ice cubes in the fridge until the last minute.

Butter from the freezer grated.

Egg yolk from the fridge.

I even refrigerated the flour ffs.

Correct measurements into food processor, blitz blitz careful now until it came together.

Back in the fridge in a ball for ten mins.

Super quick roll out into quiche dish and back into the fridge for ten mins.

Into oven for blind baking

The edges were up and over the sides.

IT HAS SHRUNK. The edges when I went to put the filling in are half way down the inside of the bastard dish.

What in the name of all that is holy am I doing wrong? What else can I do save make it in the garage?

Please help me. 2011 is my year of pastry.

Oh and additional questions

1. I am using one of those rubber flan dishes.could crap bakeware be the cause of bad pastry?

2. when you put the beans in for the blind baking bit do you have to fill up the whole of the dish with them or just the bottom?

I am willing to throw money at this problem

I use cold tap water, wash my hands in freezing water, clingfilm and bung the ball in the fridge for 20 minutes, no more, no less. I never use a food processor though, it doesn't quite work the same and it's more difficult to gauge the right amount of water. My pastry works every time. I don't put egg yolk in it.

Fill up the dish.

I'd say the main cause of shrinking pastry is stretching it when you roll it out and put it into the flan dish

It's very tempting to push the pastry into the corners of the dish, when really you should lay it into the dish ....think of it as wet tissue paper, if you poke or press it you will tear it or put your finger through it.

also it's easier to not trim the pastry at all, especially if you are baking blind....into the tin leave the excess hanging over the edges and trim to size after baking....use a very sharp knife.

personally I loathe those silicone "tins"....only love the individual muffin ones!

and as for the baking beans..I tip in all that I have, so if it's a big flan it's just the bottom covered or if it's a smaller on then they may creep up the sides!

Thanks TheVisitor.

And do you just refrigerate it in a ball or do your refrigerate it when it is in the tin too?

Maybe mine has shrunk today because of lack of beans pressure holding it back?

oh and I rarely use water...I use one and a half times flour to fat, usually baking marge and then a whole egg or a couple of yolks

I only use water if it has still not come together and it's not going to need a whole egg

what flour are you using?

Ok catsmamma, but how do you get nice fluted sides if you don't press it in a bit?

I,m scared of cutting the pastry after it has been cooked. Don't you risk it sort of shattering it and leaving a great ugly hole?

Seth, plain.

I do it in the ball. It's funny how differently we make it. :D I do 8o flour to 4oz fat - usually half stork half trex. I use plain flour. I agree about the overstretching too. :)

and have you tried doing it Jamie Oliver style where instead of rolling out, you shape into a big fat sausage, chill for an hour and cut slivers off and piece them into the dish jigsaw-style and squish the edges together?

the only time I have had serious shrinking is when I followed Nigella's silly instruction to use 00 flour, which is high in gluten.

I use SR flour! I know all the reasons why it is wrong, but it works! :D

Watch your rolling technique....short sharp rolls and do not turn it over !

No haven't done the sausage jigsaw method. Does the finished product look nice? I would love to be able to produce a taaadaaaaa pie or quiche at a dinner party.

Maybe you have hot hands Slubber.

I have heard, though not actually tested it myself, as I heard it after I had decided that pastry and I were OVAH and it was ready made from here on in, that outright freezing the completed but uncooked case solves all such problems. You cook it from frozen, adding 5 minutes or so to the cooking time. And it is like a miracle.

it looks perfect for a tart or quiche, not sure you could really do it for a pie lid because you need to press down onto it to join the bits together.
actually you could probably; you would piece it together on a floured surface then slide palette knife under it before picking it up carefully over a rolling pin.

Oh I turned it over.

How do you get lovely fluted sides if you don't push it in?

Nope hands are cold.

I barely touched it save for lifting it in and pressing the sides in.

Have taken on board tip to treat it like wet tissue paper.

I often do that PatientGriselda. it means you don't have to bother with baking beans if you want to blind bake.

Does it actually work, Seth? From a shrinking point of view, I mean?

PatientGriselda. mm OK I could do that if I was doing an ahead of time thing, but today I just wanted to make a plain old quiche lorraine to impress the family with wholesome baking fayre and it looks like shit.

have you said how much water you're using Slubber? could it be too much water?

When I was 13 or so I once made the most heavenly batch of mince pies - the pastry was so light they practically floated off the plate into people's mouths and after that my mother forced me to make her pastry for ever after.
the actual reason it was good was because I had forgotten you had to put water in and had forced the pastry to stay together through sheer force of personality.
what I learnt from that (apart from never let your mother see you are good at anything domestic) was that the less water, the better.

well I don't generally have shrinking problems so I suppose it must help.

it doesn't take long to freeze the whole thing, just 10 mins or so because it's not very thick.

but the chill-for-an-hour jigsaw-piece method does add up to quite a lot of time. jigsawing it takes longer than rolling out.

I may have used too much water.

The recipe said 4 teaspoons but when I blitzed it it wasn't coming together at all, didn't even look like breadcrumbs.

So I added quite a bit more until it all came together in a ball in the mixer.

But how do you force it together without handling it? I thought handling was the claxon of pastry failure?