Sweet pastry that crumbles in your mouth like shortbread. This is the pastry I use to make all our sweet tarts here at Le Tasting Room and it freezes like a dream. It’s so good that you could eat it on its own when it comes out of the oven. Buttery, sweet and rich, it’s the best recipe I have found. It comes from Marco Pierre White’s book Wild Food from Land & Sea.
I always make a batch and freeze it in individual portions so that when I need to make a tart, the pastry is done which is one less job to do and save time and stress. You can make a big batch or a half batch. This recipe is a half batch and makes enough for 3-4 tarts. Never throw any excess pastry away, always keep a little for patching and then rustle up a jam tart or two with any remaining.
You will need:
Half a kilo of flour
350g unsalted butter
150g icing sugar
4 egg yolks (freeze the whites for another time)
A little ice cold water (you may not need this but have it standing by)
Everything you need for the best sweet pastry
- First of all, try and make sure that your butter is at room temperature. If it’s too cold in your kitchen (as is often the case in our house) then put it into the mixer and whizz it for a few minutes until it becomes soft. Add the icing sugar and beat until really creamy and fluffy
Put your butter and icing sugar in the mixer
Beat it until it’s really creamy and white
- When it’s really creamy and white (after a few minutes) add your egg yolks and beat again
Add your egg yolks and beat thoroughly
- Scrape the mixture down and beat again to make sure the egg yolks are fully mixed in
Scrape everything down and beat again
- Weigh out your flour and add all of it at once to the butter, sugar and egg mixture
Weigh out your flour and add it all at once
- Mix slowly so that the flour doesn’t go everywhere. Stop and scrape the mixture down from the sides every now and again. You may need to add a little water at this point but often I do not as it comes together very easily and is very soft
Mix slowly (so you don’t get flour everywhere)
- Mix for a minute or two until fully combined and then switch the mixer off. The mixture is very soft and can’t easily be handled
When it has come together, beat for a minute or two
- Put some clingfilm on your scales and using a spoon measure out individual portions of pastry that weigh around 300g or thereabouts. I normally have a few different sizes, some bigger than others to suit my tart tins
Put some cling film on your scales and weigh out individual portions of around 300g
- Press gently using the film and then flatten into discs
Gently pat the pastry into a flat disc and cover with clingfilm
- Cover with clingfilm and pop into the fridge or freezer
Pop in the fridge or straight into the freezer
- If you are going to use it that day then be sure to leave it chilling in the fridge for an hour or so and then bring it back out to come to room temperature (or a temperature that allows you to roll it)
- Sprinkle your work surface with flour and gently roll out to fit your tin
Roll it out carefully using flour so it doesn’t stick
- Using your rolling pin gently ease into the tin (and this is where mine collapsed and I’m going to show you!)
Use the rolling pin to help you slide it into your tin
So, it was hot, the pastry collapsed but don’t worry it’s easy to fix
- Ok I have to come clean, sometimes it’s easy to roll and goes in the tin like a dream and sometimes it just falls apart like it did on this day. The thing is, it doesn’t matter. If you’re frightened of rolling it out altogether you can even just take small slices and pat them in the tin. Because the pastry is so great it doesn’t need to be super thin and as it’s soft you just dab the edges with water and patch with the remaining pastry. See here how mine was after I’d finished patching it
I used a dampened finger and patched up the missing bits and voila!
- Now that you have a lined tin you can either freeze it (if your pastry came straight from the fridge) or if you are going to cook it then put it back into the fridge to rest for a an hour before blind baking. For recipes such as lemon tart, orange tart, chocolate tart (where the filling is very runny), I blind bake the pastry case in the oven using greaseproof paper and baking beans. I give it 15 minutes at around 170°C with the paper in, remove it and then give it another 10 minutes until it’s cooked through
- Keep a tiny bit of pastry back so that if you have any cracks when you have blind baked it then patch again using a little pastry and water to seal
Don’t be frightened of giving this pastry a go. It really is delicious. You can add a little grated orange rind or lemon rind to give a citrus pastry (something I do at Christmas time for mince pies). You can make double this quantity using a whole kilo of flour but beware of covering yourself if you don’t have a guard on your mixer!
