Accidental low fat pastry help!!!

11 replies

TheProvincialLady · 22/12/2023 09:40

I just realised that I have made shortcrust pastry for mince pies with half the amount of butter, because I doubled the amount of flour but didn’t double the butter. I’ve made another batch so the mince pies will be ok, but is there anything I can do with pastry made to this recipe?

8oz plain flour
2oz butter (organic butter from the bloody health food shop too, so about £34 worth)
Pinch of salt
A little water

Thanks for all suggestions.

OP posts:

Ridingthegravytrain · 22/12/2023 09:43

Add more butter? And make biscuits ?

Ridingthegravytrain · 22/12/2023 09:43

Obvs add sugar too. Maybe lemon zest

PossumintheHouse · 22/12/2023 09:45

This might be a ridiculous suggestion, but why don’t you melt some butter and brush it on the pastry and knead it in? No idea if that would work, might be bonkers.

Ginisatonic · 22/12/2023 09:45

£34 worth of butter? Tell me that’s a typo!

PossumintheHouse · 22/12/2023 09:46

Also, was this butter hand-churned by golden cows?! 34 fucking quid?!

Lifeinlists · 22/12/2023 09:52

You can't add more butter when the water's been added. It won't be incorporated and you'll end up with a greasy mess.
You could try baking a sample but if its rock hard just throw it away and move on.

Was £34 a typo? I hope so!

Pipistrellus · 22/12/2023 09:54

Ginisatonic · 22/12/2023 09:45

£34 worth of butter? Tell me that’s a typo!

Has to be a calculation error surely? Even £3.40 for a quarter of a block would be crazy.

AtillaTheHon · 22/12/2023 09:55

Can you make it into rough puff pastry by rolling, then adding lumps of butter, folding, rolling again?

Original poster

TheProvincialLady · 22/12/2023 10:46

Sorry to cause consternation with my £34 worth of butter. That was my attempt at sarcasm. I can confirm that the actual price of the block of butter was £4.10.

Thanks for the advice and suggestions. I suspect nothing good is going to come whatever I try, but I will throw good butter after bad and attempt to make something with it. After all the best recipes were invented when things went wrong, according to Facebook.

OP posts:

bellac11 · 22/12/2023 10:54

Serve them with extra extra cream to people that are already tipsy, they wont notice

Splendidsunbird · 22/12/2023 11:01

That pastry will be fine to use, it will be crispy rather than crumbly, I'd just roll it out more thinly than usual. I actually like pastry for mince pies that is less buttery, rolled out thinly so that it makes a crisp shell rather than crumbly pastry, makes them like little empanadas 😊

Flip