Why is my shortcrust pastry hard
The perfect pastry will still crack at the edges while rolling it out, as the dough is not stretchy. Simply mould the dough back together and roll over that bit again.
There will be some instances where this is not possible though, eg making a pasty. Put the flour in a large mixing bowl, and sprinkle the salt over the top.
It will be incorporated in the next step. Add the cold butter, having cut it into cubes first. Rub together between your fingertips, until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Try to do this as quickly as possible, so as to not melt the butter. Add 3 tbsp cold water to the breadcrumbed flour, and bring together into a rough dough. If it is too dry add one more tablespoon of water. The dough will be crumbly, and this is good- this will give it a lovely, crumble finish.
Do not over-knead the dough, as this will melt the butter and result in soggy pastry. The pastry may be undercooked or you might have forgotten to make a steam vent.
If you have a lot of sugar in your filling, or the filling is very wet, you may be better to cook the pastry first and add the filling halfway through baking. Pastry needs time to rest before it is rolled out and baked. The pastry may also have been overstretched when it was rolled out.
This can happen if self raising flour is used — only plain flour should be used when making pastry. Too much water or movement develops gluten in the flour, which equals hard pastry. The warning sign? Your dough will feel elastic. The remedy? Read on…. Time in the fridge helps gluten to relax you might be seeing a theme here: the cold is your friend.
This also sets the butter, and helps the pastry to keep its shape in the oven. Though it sounds like that would be helpful, gluten-free pastry can go the other way and be too crumbly. Try our foolproof recipe in this gluten-free Lemon Tart. Trying to work with pastry straight from the chiller will result in cracks, so make sure you give it 10min at room temperature before you attempt to roll it.
Putting flour on the work surface and your rolling pin is helpful to stop pastry sticking, but too much will make it dry, leathery and prone to break. Palette knife to the rescue! It allows you to slide neatly under the pastry and release any stuck patches.
For a shapely tart shell, spend some time pressing the pastry right into the corners and then all the way up the sides of the tin without stretching it, then trim off the excess. This will stop it shrinking or having dents in.
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