Rubbing flour and butter together

[GinAndOnIt]

Is the most tedious thing I've ever had to do. I'm surely making it more difficult than it needs to be.

I made cheese scones the other week, and whinged the whole time. I keep avoiding pastry recipes.

I want to make a crumble with some lovely home grown apples I was given, and I don't know if I can face it.

I plan to ask for a lovely electric mixer of some sort for Christmas, but does anyone have any secrets about how to make it just marginally more pleasurable?

My fingers feel like they seize up into a claw within about 5 minutes of doing it. But I really want crumble!

I find cutting the butter into small cubes helps also slightly softened I quite like doing it tho

I did try that. I also tried watching the woman on the BBC website merrily rubbing it altogether. I do exactly as she does, but just replace the happy grin with an unamused scowl.

This is why you need a food processor.....brilliant for making pastry! and no sticky fingers

I also dislike crushing biscuits for cheesecake, and whipping butter for icing sugar. So basically anything that requires a bit of effort. Perhaps I just don't like baking!

For icing sugar? That's not what I meant. For buttercream

You can buy bags of crumble topping in supermarkets for about 50p.

yes to food processor. or mixer (on low with the dough hook)

I get the butter nice and cold and grate it into the flour. Make sure you coat the butter with the flour as you add the grated butter.

Then wait for it to warm up and then once it is soft, then rub it in.

When you do it, make sure your hands are palm up not down.

It takes about 3 minutes,what on earth are you doing to make it tedious?

I love it...best part of my year is making a great vat of pastry for mince pies

Massive bowl of flour...two or three blocks of butter...it's like some calming ritual

I always feel ready for anything if I have homemade pastry in the freezer.

I hate it too and never do it. I use a food processor.

Buying ready-made stuff makes me feel like a fraud though. Or that I should just buy a whole ready-made crumble

3 minutes?!? It takes me at least twenty. What am I doing?!

Grated butter sounds like it could work...

For crumble, there's a lazy version - substitute oats for half of the flour, then melt the butter, pour it in, mix with a fork. Clean fingers guaranteed!

20 minutes?!

What are your quantities?

Soft butter,cold hands,rub together quickly.

And I've never whisked butter for butter cream

Ooooh that's interesting cointreau

The twenty minutes is probably 15 minutes worth of me leaning on the counter making a 'urrghhhhh' noise. I never have cold hands though. Perhaps there lies the issue!

Not whisking.. you know like beating with a spoon. So it's creamy.

Like when you beat butter and sugar together to make a cake?

I've made short crust pastry both in the food processor and by hand (rubbing in) and not been able to tell the difference and I make good pastry

Alternatively use the K beater with a KitchenAid or Kenwood Chef.

Failing either of those, my mum taught me to rub fat in (for scones or pastry) using one of these before she got her Kenwood Chef (and was how I had to do it for years, before I got a food processor and was then given a Kitchen Aid as an engagement present from my parents)


Oops - picture didn't post. Let me see if I can find it in Lakeland Plastics, to post a link.

I'd recommend getting a mixer of some sort; but failing that and in the meantime, try working the butter into the flour with a fork. I've rarely used fingers usually some combination of fork or wooden spoon.

I really wanted to keep my kitchen gadget free and embrace the old ways of baking. I somehow don't think I'm cut out for it though.

Maybe I could try fork and finish with hands. That might stop the claw!

Oooo what's that Polter - how does it work?