Sweet shortcrust pastry Recipe | 4Food

Jamie Oliver

Date Published:: 31/01/2008

Jamie:

"This pastry is perfect for making apple and other sweet pies. Even if you've never made pastry before, as long as you stick to the correct measurements for the ingredients and you follow the method exactly, you'll be laughing. The one place where you can experiment is with flavouring. If you don't fancy using lemon zest, try another dry ingredient like orange zest instead. Or a pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg or cocoa powder. Vanilla seeds are great too. Just remember to be subtle and don't go overboard with any of these flavours!

"Try to be confident and bring the pastry together as quickly as you can - don't knead it too much or the heat from your hands will melt the butter. A good tip is to hold your hands under cold running water beforehand to make them as cold as possible. That way you'll end up with a delicate, flaky pastry every time"

Makes about 1kg

Ingredients

500g organic plain flour, plus extra for dusting
100g icing sugar, sifted
250g good-quality cold butter, cut into small cubes
Zest of 1 lemon
2 large free-range or organic eggs, beaten
A splash of milk
Flour, for dusting

Method: How to make old-fashioned sweet shortcrust pastry

1. Sieve the flour from a height on to a clean work surface and sieve the icing sugar over the top. Using your hands, work the cubes of butter into the flour and sugar by rubbing your thumbs against your fingers until you end up with a fine, crumbly mixture. This is the point where you can spike the mixture with interesting flavours, so mix in your lemon zest.

2. Add the eggs and milk to the mixture and gently work it together till you have a ball of dough. Flour it lightly. Don't work the pastry too much at this stage or it will become elastic and chewy, not crumbly and short. Flour your work surface and place the dough on top. Pat it into a flat round, flour it lightly, wrap it in cling film and put it into the fridge to rest for at least half an hour.