Pastry doom - M&S or start again?

[Northey]

I'm making Seville orange tart to take to a colleague's for dinner tonight. The pastry case does not look good - one side collapsing a bit and just generally unappetising (it's Carrefour ready rolled pâté sablée which I was using out of laziness and it smells synthetic and looks... not like what I think of as sablée).

• Press on and potentially waste the filling ingredients as well?
• Go to M&S now and buy a ready made case (safe but less impressive)?
• Stop being lazy and try to make some pastry myself (risky)?

I've had bad experiences with Carrefour pastry and always make my own in food processor everything as cold as poss and at least 30 mins in fridge to rest before it's rolled out. I like Jamie Oliver's recipie from the America book for a sweet pastry.

I am an idiot for buying it. I just never see ready made sablée in shops, so excitedly nabbed some. I suppose I should have tried it out myself before using it for someone else...

What was your bad experience, nec? If it was flavour-related I'm starting again...

I've never heard of Carrefour so can't help on that front, but as Mrs has said, making your own is simple enough. Keep everything as cold os possible and handle it as little as possible so it doesn't stretch

It's a French supermarket, jim.

I am not a natural pastry-maker, hence my sneaky purchasing of it.

Is a friend's dinner party the best time to have another go myself?

Oh dear, the eternal debate between dodgy home-made and perfect but soulless shop-bought.

Right, here's a quick easy way of making pastry...

For a tart you will probably need 10oz strong flour (250g but check, I make pastry in imperial) to 5oz of fat (marg or butter) (if doing savoury pastry use half marg/butter half lard/white fat) and some cold water.

Weigh the flour and sieve into a largeish bowl with a small pinch of salt. Weigh the fat and cut it up into the bowl in small bits, work the fat in quickly by rubbing it with your fingers - but you don't need to turn it into fine breadcrumbs like the books tell you. Lumps is good!

Pour in about 1/4 pint of the water and use a round bladed knife (those bone handled ones your granny had are THE BEST) and cut up the flour and fat so that it combines with the water - don't stir with the knife a cutting action is best. I take out the bit that's combined (bung it in the scale pan usually) and then put a little bit of water into what's left and combine that.

It should turn out quite springy, but all the flour should have combined.

Give it a quick kneed and put it into the fridge for a few minutes to cool down.

Then flour your suface and the rolling pin and roll out.

Good luck

I just found it to be not as rich as I wanted. I could tell it was shop bought and was harder to work with than home made. I do like their phylo though. Try above but the recipe I'm on about is this 250gflour, 50g icing sugar, 125g butter, 1egg & splash of milk. Flavour with either a vanilla pod or zest of an orange. Process the flour sugar and butter. At breadcrumbs stage add egg. Have a glass of iced milk next to the processor and add a dash if you need to. That's it. Chefs cliche but I think the key is the quality in this case the butter. I know this is just average sweet pastry but it works for me.

Argh! And now the filling has gone wrong too. It looks bobbly and weird ad like it might have somehow separated inside.

I have no way of telling without cutting into it.

Oh God, I think I need to make something else. In four hours.

Really don't know what to suggest at such short notice! Except maybe you need that trip to M and S afterall! You could take what you've made anyway. Is there still a chance it would be ok? I'm better at cakes etc than dinner party puds. And cos of where I live I've just been doing fruit and home made ice cream of late when I've been enertaining. (Nigelissima no churn coffee in the freezer as we speak) I only really use that pastry for pecan pie which takes ages and costs a fortune so recipe no good here! Sorry I can't be of any further help and good luck! X

Go to m and s. Buy posh tart, take out or packaging put on posh plate. Crumble edges of pastry slightly. Icing sugar over top. Google how to make said tart and learn. Lap up the admiration :-)

It was in fact separated and weird inside. I cracked and dug a tiny hole into it!

M&S has furnished a tart case and I have made a mango mousse, which has filled it and set nicely. I also put some spare in a dish, so I can actually test and taste it :)

I may decorate it with raspberries in a minute.

Marks. Tarts au citron. Raspberries on top. Icing sugar.
Or make a quick choc mousse

Mango mousse sounds vile

Really? I was about to say that it sounded lush! :)

Oh! Bugger. Sorry bonny :(

It looks quite nice, and is sharpened up with lime juice and decorated with raspberries. I might even say it looks quite French. Or at least it will if I get out of the bath and glaze it.

Thanks for all the advice and support by the way. I'm not usually so wet about culinary disasters. I'm about to go back to work on monday after a period of sick leave for a stressful operation and drug treatment and it's all making me overreact about things that would not normally phase me in the slightest!

Hi Northey, i know what you mean, i've had a very stressfull fews weeks, moving, not the easy kinda of moving, the moving out and not having anywhere to go type of moving, anyway, i bake alot of cakes for people and since i've moved i haven't made one yet as its a gas oven, ikeep going to then put myself of it, will have to soon though as got a few cakes in the pipeline to make for various people!