Short, flaky, sweet or savoury, it will get you extra points

The ranting will be short this week. I have given my all, ranting wise, it has been a good week for it, with enough to go on. I can give no more.

For those who wish to have a summary of the subjects of this week's ranting, here is a list: mobile phone companies, mobile phone company call plans, Sam Cam's use as a clothes horse rather than an intelligent woman, media coverage of so-called "political wives", the phrase "political wives", third rate hotels, Denise Fergus being treated as an expert on criminal rehabilitation, train ticket pricing plans, podcasts which don't work, private companies stripping pension funds and remaining in business whilst their pensioners have to go on benefits, capitalism generally, capitalism specifically as it relates to banking and property, capitalism as it relates to the giving up of protest against it, child criminals being called demons and monsters when fathers who kill their children are given sympathy for being broken hearted, all the major political parties for not reading Keynes properly, all the major political parties for lurching together to a deficit = cuts in public spending position (show me a time when this worked, go on, just try), dunking, bad coffee and Big Lottery. And breathe. And relax. And back to the recipe. It will soon look like this>>>>>>>>>

So here is this week's blog, how to make your own pastry. Masterchef this week gave lots of extra points to the person who made their own leek quiche using their own pastry. What we post in the Bakery Window one month they applaud on the best programme on TV the next.

Good tart recipes abound in Tamasin Day-Lewis' "The Art of the Tart", of savoury and sweet varieties. I heartily recommend it.


(Shortcrust) Pastry method:

1. Go to shop. Buy packet of frozen pastry. Get home. Discover it is sweet and you wanted savoury. Curse and rail against the modern world. Turn on the Cooking Channel and eat toast instead.
2. Go to shop, carefully examine range of pastry products available. Don’t buy sweet pastry. Get home and discover that you bought puff pastry and you wanted shortcrust for the leek tart in Thangam Bakery part 3. Curse and rail against the modern world. Turn on the cooking channel, worry about possibility of right wing government and eat extra toast with cinnamon sugar on it instead.
3. Go to shop, remember to choose savoury short crust pastry. Get home and heave sigh of relief. Put pastry in the freezer because you aren’t going to cook now. Worry like mad about the prospect of right wing government. Curse and rail against the modern world. Pour glass of wine. Start chopping leeks or preparing tart innards according to recipe. Pour another glass of wine. Spend 7.9 hours and 1.4 bottles of wine preparing tart filling. Feel rather smug then realise the pastry is still a frozen block. Realise further more that you have no idea how to work the microwave for pastry defrosting purposes or any purposes other than as a semi supportive base for the bread maker and the collection of empty jam jars waiting to find new meaning. Curse and rail against the modern world. Decide it is time to make own pastry…..

Ingredients
200g Plain flour, 1oog butter (for 12in/30cm tin) or 150g plain flour and 75g butter (for 9in/22cm tin) good pinch salt, enough cold water to bind it (optional: egg yolk and cold water mix, if you aren’t allergic to eggs and want a bit of richness in your crust).

Rub
Rub fat into flour. Roughly translated, this means, sieve flour into a good sized bowl, then chop the butter (or vegan equivalent) into it roughly, then using only finger tips, rub the butter against the flour so that it gradually becomes the texture of breadcrumbs. Shake the bowl every now and then to see how well it is mixed – big lumps will collect at the top (don’t ask me why, ask someone who can explain gravity without the aid of a satsuma). Keep your hands cold, you don’t want the butter to melt. And yes, you could have used a blender. I just don't have one.

Bind
Add a good grind of salt, then slowly add cold water, or (if using egg yolk) first the egg yolk followed by enough water to keep the mixture together. Use a knife blade, not your finders, to bring it all to a firm not sticky ball. Over-fingering leads to unwanted melting or softening. If you accidentally add too much water, you can add some flour and roll the ball around in it until stiff again, but try not to add too much water in the first place. And no, I don't know how to do this bit with a blender because I don't have one. Maybe with a blade? It needs to be done adding a tiny bit of liquid at a time so that the pastry doesn't get too sticky, no stickiness is required at all. If you do go too far, roll it in flour to try to reverse the damage.

Wrap, chill and firm
Wrap this firm ball in greaseproof paper (or a fresh butter wrapper if you don’t have a roll of greaseproof paper) and put it in the fridge for as long as you can to chill and firm. Oh how I wish that being wrapped in greaseproof paper and put in the fridge would help me to chill and firm.

Unwrap and roll
After at least one hour of chilling and firming, remove the pastry from the fridge and wrapping. Push it together into roughly the relevant shape for your baking tray – if you are using a rectangular shallow one, make it roughly rectangular. If a traditional circular pie or quiche tin, make it properly spherical then squash it to make a thick circular disk. Dust the kitchen surface with a light layer of flour and do the same to your rolling implement – I find a wine cooler works very well but it's a shame to risk the wine warming up. Old fashioned milk bottles used to do the job. Unopened wine bottles still do. Or you could always use a rolling pin. Roll the pastry: press down and roll your chosen implement back and forth over the pastry twice, then turn it through 90 degrees and do the same, pushing it back into the rectangle/circle as needed, before continuing with the turning and rolling, turning and rolling, pushing back a bit etc. This should lead you to a roughly perfect rolled out pastry layer – you want it to be no more than a couple of millimetres thick – no matter how much you love pastry, too thick and you are on the damp and slippery road to pastry heartache. Just right and crisp buttery moist but yielding tart case will reward you.

Line and partially bake
Line the baking tray/tin with pastry – it doesn’t really need greasing, there is enough in the pastry – tucking it firmly into all corners without stretching. Then cut away all the excess pastry flaps and frills – run a knife round the top edge, cut off any corner pleats, make sure it is all neat and there are no cracks or holes. Now cover with greaseproof paper or butter papers and sprinkle these with pastry beads (see below) or dried beans to weight down the paper. Put it in the oven at 180c and cook for about 10-15 minutes or so until it is just turning firm but hasn’t yet started to change colour. Take it out of the oven and place on a heatproof surface. Remove beads and paper and put the beads/beans away for next time.

Prick and return
Having removed paper and beads, prick the base with a sharp pricky thing or fork, don't jab it hard enough to cause actual bodily damage to the lovely non stick surface of your fine flan tin, four or five pricks with the kitchen fork to hand will do. Then return the pastry, no paper or bead/ns this time and bake for a further 5-10 minutes to dry out the base.

What on earth is a pastry bead?
Beads are for cooking, not just jewelry or sewing or that other thing that I have heard some of the more adventurous amongst you may have used them for but aren’t likely to admit to your parents. They are little blobs, size of large-ish jewelry beads but without the little hole through the middle. They are ceramic, or made from some other substance which won’t blow up or melt when put in the oven. They are to weigh down the pastry during the partial baking process (I can’t call it baking blind, for goodness sake, pastry doesn’t have eyes) so that the pastry doesn’t balloon up. Don’t put them straight onto the pastry, cut or roughly tear a piece of greaseproof paper to the shape of your tart tine, put this on top of the uncooked pastry and weigh the paper and pastry down with the beads.

You can use dried beans instead and then re-use them afterwards by storing in one of the empty jars lurking around the back of the under the sink cupboard or behind the microwave, at which point you will feel a warm glow of thriftiness and connection with your grandmother or with Mrs Beeton. You may find you can never again find where you put them, but maybe that’s just me.

You can buy the ceramic ones from a nice kitchen department in a nice old fashioned department store or just from the nice kitchen shop, which, where I live, is handily called KITCHENS. In the postmodern ironic world you may find your local equivalent is unhandily called BATHROOMS but if that is the case, don’t go there, don’t give them your money, it will only encourage them.

Puff pastry? No thanks
Well, not really, in fact of course puff pastry yes please but unless you are comforting yourself from some deep emotional trauma, or avoiding a deadline (the people who get their morning beverage in the Real Live Thangam Bakery know I mean what I say there) I think that pretty much comes under the heading of life really being too short. I love cooking, and don’t ever think life is too short to stuff a mushroom (actually I prefer it if the stuffing receptacle is a cabbage leaf, mushrooms are best fried in butter, featuring in a risotto or left picturesquely nuzzling tree stumps in the woods) but making puff pastry is a thankless unrewarding task involving rolling, laying out bits of butter, re-rolling, wrapping and chilling, unwrapping, more rolling, more laying out bits of butter, more re-rolling, more wrapping and chilling and on and on and on….Kids, just say no.

NEXT TIME IN THE BAKERY WINDOW: something sweet and pretty. And the return of the rant.