Short Crust Pastry with 25% less fat

I have always been apprehensive about handling pastry and even more so making it. I have only ever attempted making short crust pastry once, more than a decade ago and that experience was enough to stop me dead in my tracks.

Here I am again, taking up the challenge, all because I bought myself a pie maker. It was on special for $10 and too good an offer to pass up.

Pastries are by nature quite fattening. I played around with trying to reduce the ratio of fat to flour as even a slight reduction in the fat content will help in the cholestrol and calorie count. In this recipe I have successfully reduced the fat used by 25 percent without affecting the flaky texture of the pie.

This short crust pastry was easy to handle and did not crumble . When baked the pastry was tender, flaky and crispy right through to the inside. I usually make a batch, pre-cut the pie tops and bottoms, and freeze them thus making the task of making the next lot of pies less tedious. We have used the pastry to make curry mince and bacon n' egg pies and they were delicious.

Makes 5 - 5" pies

Ingredients
260 gm flour
60 gm butter
40 gm shortening
¼ tsp salt
95-105 ml ice cold water
1 tsp vinegar or lemon juice (add to water)

Method
1. Add flour, salt, butter and shortening to food processor. Cube the butter and shortening. Pulse a few times until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

2. Sprinkle the water over the flour mixture. Pulse until it starts to clump together (fig 2). Pinch a little of the mixture between your fingers, if the dough is too dry and crumbly, add a little more water and pulse for 1-2 seconds more. It is very important not to overprocess the dough. Do not allow the pastry to form a ball in the food processor. The dough should not be wet or sticky.

3. Transfer the mixture to a plastic wrap (fig 3). Gather the wrap round the dough and flatten the dough to form a square (fig 4). Do not knead the dough.




4. Rest dough in fridge for at least 30 minutes.

5. Roll and use as required. I prefer to roll mine using a pasta machine on the widest slot.


Note :
1. Pre-cutting all the top and bottom of the pie and freezing them individually makes it quick and easy to defrost.
2. Do not substitute butter for margarine as the latter has a higher water content which will make the pastry soggy.
3. Use the metal blade to process in the food processor.


Tips :
1. It is very important to have all the ingredients chilled until very cold. After weighing out the flour and butter/shortening, I leave the food processor bowl with the ingredients in the fridge for 10 minutes to chill.
2. The entire mixing in the food processor should not take longer than 1 minute.
3. Handle the dough as little as possible.