Gluten Free Sweet Short Crust Pastry

A tarty reliable friend.

This amount makes 12 deep filled mince pies or one deep 23cm tart with left overs.

INGREDIENTS:

125g cold baking block or salted butter

250g gluten free self raising flour

50g icing sugar

30g egg white - 2 tbsp

HOW TO:

• Add the flour, sugar and baking block to a food processor and blitz to crumbs.

• Add the egg white and blitz until the pastry forms a paste / ball. It should be soft but not sticky.

• Use the pastry straight away, there is no need to chill it like gluten pastry. Chilling this pastry makes it brittle and unworkable.

• Roll the pastry on a well-floured sheet of baking paper, you can use a sheet over the top but I find just flouring the pastry and pin works fine.

• Cut the pastry to the size you want and lay in your tin. You can re work and re roll this pastry as much as is need as there’s no gluten to go tough through over working it.

• For larger tart tins you’ll probably find you have to patch it together as it invariably tears when transferring - this is fine, it all bakes together perfectly.

• There is no need to chill the pastry once it’s in the tin, even for blind baking, just bake it.

BAKING:

• Bake at 175ºc for as long as the specific pie recipe states.

• This pastry works perfectly baked raw with a filling, as a guide, deep filled mince pies will bake for 20 minutes in the middle of the oven.

• For blind baking press the pastry into the tin, line with baking paper and either sit a similar sized ramekin into the tart case, or use baking beans and bake for 20 minutes in the middle of the oven. Then remove the paper and ramekin / beans, brush the surface of the pastry with egg white to prevent cracking and return to the oven for between 8 to 10 minutes to dry, crisp and go slightly golden. When baked remove from the tin and cool and use or store in an air tight tub for up to a week.

EGG FREE:

This can be made without eggs, using aquafaba (or water if you don’t or can’t have it), although it is more fragile as the egg white adds a lot to the structure and stability of the pastry.

However this egg free version is perfect for baking raw with a filling, ie mince pies or Bakewell  tarts. It is less reliable for blind baking a tart case, I’ve found it works well for small, mince pie sized tart shells but is prone to cracking on medium and large tarts. Follow the above baking instructions. For blind baking, you can brush the part baked cases with aquafaba although I’m sceptical as to whether it helps hold the pastry together. But sometimes a meaningless gesture is all we need to get through the day, right?

125g cold baking block or salted butter

250g gluten free self raising flour

50g icing sugar

15g aquafaba or water - 1 tbsp

WITH GLUTEN FLOUR

This can be made with gluten flour, simply swap the GF self raising for wheat self raising and follow the recipe for either the egg or aquafaba versions.

The only difference is once you have brought the dough together in the food processor you will have to wrap it and chill it in the fridge for 30 minutes. Then use as needed, but as with all gluten pastry, it will go tough if over worked. On the plus side it’s much easier to transfer into a large tart tin because the gluten keeps it pliable and holds it all together so you shouldn’t need to patch it like its GF cousin.

Good luck,

Tat x