Shortcrust Pastry is a versatile pastry dough which is used to make so many pastries, like apple pies, lemon tarts and onion cheese quiche. Learn how to make shortcrust pastry with step by step instructions.
Shortcrust Pastry
In this post I am going to share basic eggless pastry dough which is both sweet and savoury.
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Table of Contents
About Shortcrust Pastry Recipe
This is one of basic dough for many recipes like Pies, Quiche, Tarts and many more. So I am giving you a step by step detailed recipe for this. The main thing you should know is use half the amount of butter for flour and also try to use ice cold water for making the dough. This dough has a little more sugar.
This dough is best for making sweet filling pies or any sweet preparations. If you are using it to make savoury don't use the sugar.
Savoury Shortcrust Pastry Recipe. This pastry is my go to recipe for tarts, pies and quiche. It is not only fool proof but taste so buttery and flaky.
Recipes using Shortcrust Pastry
Video for Shortcrust Pastry
Shortcrust Pastry Ingredients
Plain Flour (All purpose flour) - use refined flour for making pastry dough. For better result, you can freeze the plain flour before making short crust pastry.
Sugar - use powdered sugar for making pastry dough. Sugar has to be powdered to mix evenly into the dough.
Salt - I use a little bit of salt when making sweet shortcrust pastry. If you are making savoury, reduce the sugar and increase the salt.
Cold Butter - main rule when making shortcrust pastry is to keep the butter cold. You can freeze butter before making shortcrust pastry. You can either grate butter or cut into cubes.
Cold Water - fill water with ice cubes and use this to make the pastry dough.
How to Make Sweet or Savoury Shortcrust Pastry (without Eggs)
Mixing Flour with Butter
In a mixing bowl add flour, salt, sugar and mix well.. Add in chopped cold butter and rub with your fingers till it forms coarse crumbs.
Adding cold water
Add a spoonful of water and mix well using a spoon, if it is too dry add spoonful more water. Now form this to a dough. Dont knead too much.
Chilling the dough
Cover it with plastic wrap and chill it in the fridge for 1 hour. Now you can use this for any recipe as you like. You can use this dough for quiche, savoury tarts or pies.
Shortcrust Pastry Step-wise pictures (Sweet)
1)Take flour in a bowl.
2)Add in sugar
3)Add in salt
4)Add in cold butter cut into small cubes
5)rub the butter with your fingers into the flour.
6)The butter will mix in the flour and resembles size of peas.
7) You can use pastry cutter to rub the flour into the butter. Now the butter is incorporated.
9)Like this.
10)Add cold water little by little and gently mix the flour using a fork.
11)Mix gently.
12)The mixture will look a bit dry.
14)so add another spoonful of ice water
15)Mix well
16)Just bring the dough together. Don't over knead it.
17)Like this
18)don't over knead this dough, or the pie will turn hard and chewy. Just bring it together using your hands thats it
19)Wrap the dough in plastic wrap.
20)Flatten it.
21)Place in fridge for 1 hour before using.
Savoury Shortcrust Pastry
Step-wise Pictures (Savoury)
1)Take flour in a bowl
2)Add salt and pepper
3)Mix well
4)4)Add cold cubed butter
6)Now it is well mixed
7)Add cold water
8)Shape it into a dough
9)Wrap it in plastic
10)Chill the dough for 30 mins before using.
How to Line a Tart Mould
11)Now let's line the tart mould with the pastry. I used a tart tin with removable base.
12)Roll the dough between parchment paper. You can use plastic wrap also. I like to place the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll the dough. This makes the dough not to stick to the rolling pin.
13)Place it over the tart mould using parchment paper and gently peel off the paper.
14)Gently peel off the parchment paper and cut off the excess dough using a knife.
15) Prick all over the base using a fork and blind bake. Once it is baked you can fill with any filling and make it into quiche or pies or tart.
Food Processor Shortcrust Pastry Dough
In your food processor bowl, add flour, salt, sugar and pulse for few seconds till combined. Now add in cubed cold unsalted butter in and pulse few times till the butter is blended into the flour and looks like size of pea.
Now add very little cold water and pulse few times. If your dough is not coming together add more cold water. Once the dough starts to come together turn off the machine and remove the dough to a plastic cling wrap and fold well. Flatten it and store in fridge till use.
Expert Tips
Flaky Shortcrust pastry
Once you make the shortcrust pastry dough. fold it two to three times on itself to create more layers. This trick will create more flaky texture in your pastry. Also make sure your pastry dough is cold when baking.
Chill before baking
Use cold water for kneading the dough and cold butter, this will give flaky crust. I always prefer to place the tart tin after it is lined with the pastry in fridge for few hours before baking. Refrigerate Shortcrust pastry dough for at least 1 to 2 hours.
Measurement is key
Reducing the butter quantity will result a hard crust. So use butter as mentioned.
No Over kneading
Don't over knead the dough, else the gluten will develop in the dough which results in chewy crust.
Recipes using Shortcrust pastry
📖 Recipe Card
Basic Shortcrust Pastry Recipe (Sweet & Savoury)
Ingredients
Sweet Shortcrust Pastry Dough Recipe
- 400 grams All Purpose Flour
- 200 grams Unsalted Butter (must be cold)
- a pinch Salt
- ½ cup Sugar powdered
- as needed Cold Water
Savoury Shortcrust Pastry Recipe
- 400 grams All Purpose Flour
- 200 grams Unsalted Butter (must be cold)
- 2 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Black Pepper
- as needed Cold Water
Instructions
Sweet Short Crust Pastry Recipe
- In a mixing bowl add flour,salt,sugar and mix well.
- Add in chopped cold butter and rub with your fingers till it forms coarse crumbs.
- Add a spoonful of water and mix well using a spoon, if it is too dry add spoonful more water. Now form this to a dough. Dont knead too much.
- Cover it with plastic wrap and chill it in the fridge for 1 hour.
- Now you can use this for any recipe as you like..
Savoury Short Crust Pastry Recipe
- Take flour, salt, pepper in a bowl and mix well.
- Add cold butter and rub the butter into flour.
- Add in cold water and mix well to a dough.
- Wrap the dough in plastic and chill for 30 min before using.
- You can use this dough for quiche, savoury tarts or pies.
Video
Notes
- Reducing the butter quantity will result a hard crust. So use butter as mentioned.
- Don't over knead the dough, else the gluten will develop in the dough which results in chewy crust.
- Use cold water for kneading the dough and cold butter, this will give flaky crust.
- This dough has a little more sugar,this dough is best for making sweet filling pies or any sweet preparations.
- If you are making it for savoury don't use the sugar.
If you have any questions not covered in this post and if you need help, leave me a comment or mail me @[email protected] and I’ll help as soon as I can.
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Raksha
hey this is great
Lauren Leach
Beautiful pastry, lovely and buttery!
Ayesha Manna
Lovely..one help plz.. Can u convert grams to cups? i mean how much butter equals 100 gms? 1 stick?
Aarthi
@Ayesha Manna 1 stick butter is 113 grams. So it is a little less than 1 stick.
Anonymous
Sorry .. but would like to have known whhat oven number to cook it on and how long x
Aarthi
@Anonymouscheck this recipe
https://www.yummytummyaarthi.com/2011/06/apple-pie.html
uma mahi
hie akka..can i use this for making samosa? thanks:)
Aarthi
@uma mahino these are for pies and tarts. Check this link for samosa recipe
https://www.yummytummyaarthi.com/2012/02/punjabi-samosa-samosa-with-spicy-potato.html
umamahi
akka..can i make this as a sheet for samosa and bake it?
umamahi
by negleting the sugar..sry forgot to add this line
Aarthi
@umamahithis has too much butter, so it wont work for samosa sheets
Rachael
I have never made pastry before, I always thought it was tricky to get right. This recipe is fantastic! So easy to follow (thanks for your photo tips) and tastes great. My son is allergic to egg, so I had to use an egg free pastry for my mince pies. I put in 3 tablespoons of caster sugar as I didn't have powder sugar (I assume you mean icing sugar) and I used half butter and half lard (a friend had recommended to do this). I didn't overwork it and the result is crumbly (not too crumbly), light and just sweet enough. It's so simple, I've made another batch today and popped it in the fridge for the weekend. I've gone from being a pastry virgin to making it twice in two days! Thanks so much, I'll be checking out more of your recipes, especially the egg free ones.
Anonymous
Hi, can the maida be substituted by whole wheat flour..if yes then what is the proportion....thank you