Making Pastry

Ingredients and utensils

You will need flour - it doesn't matter what kind, plain or self-raising will do and wholemeal flour will give you a slightly different looking and tasting end result - butter or margarine, a large mixing bowl (big enough to accomodate both your hands comfortably), a sieve, a rolling pin, a knife and a pastry brush if you have one.

You will also need dishes, tins or whatever you are going to put the pastry into, ready to hand.

If you don't have a rolling pin, you can use a straight sided wine bottle. The sieve isn't strictly speaking essential either but if you sift the flour it does give a finer pastry finish.

Some folks pay a fortune for those fancy marble or glass rolling pins that you can put crushed ice inside to keep your pastry cool while you roll it ... take a normal straight sided wine bottle (after removing the labels) and you can fill that with crushed ice for the same effect.

Ok, it isn't as long as the rolling pin, so you probably have to do very slightly more work but, hey, you just saved yourself a whole heap of money there.

Personally, I use a wooden rolling pin. Either way, you must keep the rolling pin well floured while using or the pastry dough will stick to it.

Rubbing together the flour and butter

Chop the butter into smaller pieces, especially if it is solid block butter and put into your mixing bowl.

The quantity you use will vary depending on the size of the pie or number of pies you are going to make but very approximately, 2 ounces of butter to 4 ounces of flour is the ratio to use.

Sift the flour over the butter to ensure there are no lumps in it and, at this stage, you can also add any flavourings or seasonings you wish to the mix.

Now we mix the flour and butter together by 'rubbing in' as shown in the video below.

With both hands in the dish, dig your fingers into the flour and start squishing together the flour and butter, rubbing it between your fingers and thumbs until the flour has absorbed the butter and is running through your fingers with the consistency and look of breadcrumbs.

If the mix is a bit sticky, you may need to sift in a little more flour. Being precise is not easy as I don't know the temperature of your kitchen.

Once the flour and butter are blended

When you have achieved the 'breadcrumb' effect, make a little well or hollow in the middle of the mix. Into this, pour a little milk or water and start to roll the lot together.

It really doesn't take very much liquid, depending on the amount of pastry you are making it may require less than an ounce of fluid or considerably more if your mix is large, so add this just a bit at a time or you risk ending up with slurry.

Using your hand to move the mix together, you should find it will bind into a ball which comes cleanly away from the sides of the bowl. If you accidentally add a litle too much milk, you should be able to salvage the situation by sifting over a little more flour.

Rolling out the dough

Scatter some flour across the work surface on which you are going to roll out your dough.

Some folks swear by a marble slab for rolling out pastry and, it's true, the surface is cooler and if you are so inclined, you can roll your pastry so thin that you can see the veins of the marble through it ... but are we looking to eat or make a work of art? Yes, you could make the finest pastry ever but here we want to feed the family.

So, slightly flatten your ball of dough and place it centrally on the area of floured worksurface. Flour your rolling pin well and start rolling out that dough.

I turn the dough as I'm working, partly to ensure it isn't sticking to the surface underneath and partly so that I get it evenly rolled in every direction.

If you do find the pastry dough sticking slightly underneath, lift it carefully, reflour the surface and flip the dough over bottom up. Continue rolling until you are happy with the thickness of the dough - obviously, you must make sure you have enough to cover the dish, tin or whatever you are baking your pie in.

You should be able to lift the pastry using your rolling pin and place it over the dish you are going to bake in.

Pie crust

Clearly you must put the bottom crust in first. Remember to allow enough extra for the dough to cover the bottom and the sides of your dish. Trim the excess pastry from the dish with a knife and reserve the excess, balling it together ready to re-roll for the top of the pie.

Having done this, place into the pastry dish whatever filling you are putting in your pie.

Moisten the edge of the pastry in the dish so that the lid will stick to it, re-roll the remaining pastry and lift it over the top to close the pie. Crimp the edges together between your thumbs - shown below - trim and decorate your pie.

Finishing and decorating your pie

Breathing holes in the top of the pie-crust are essential to allow steam to escape or the crust will crack and split.

You can paint the top with milk or water to encourage a golden look to the pastry (I did that with the apple pie) or, if it is a sweet pie, you could drizzle some sugar over the top.

If you feel like it you can make little shapes appropriate to the contents to decorate the top of the pie, if you really wanted to go to town, you could paint those shapes with a little food colouring to enhance the look - there is no real limit to what you can put on top of a pie, just be sure that the breathing holes are left free.

Bake for the required time for the ingredients to cook (see your recipe) and ... voila!

Pimp My Pie

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