How To Make Simple Homemade Pastry

Why bother with store-bought pastry when it’s so easy to make your own! This homemade pastry recipe is perfect for savory pies and quiches.

All it takes to make simple savoury homemade pastry is a little bit of flour (some white, some wholemeal), a dash of butter, a sprinkling of parmigiano and something to bring it all together – either water, egg or milk – and the pastry is made.

Once you have made homemade pastry a few times you will become so extremely efficient with the process that going to the shops to buy it becomes a chore and making it – a chore no more!

The rule is to use 1:2 parts butter to flour. Therefore, if using 200g of flour add 100g of butter. However, if you want a little extra richness add some extra butter and throw in some parmesan cheese.

Here’s our recipe for a delicious savoury homemade pastry.

How To Make Simple Homemade Pastry
Photo: Village Dreaming

Ingredients:

  • 230g white flour
  • 20g rye flour
  • 150g chilled butter
  • 30g parmesan cheese
  • 1 free range egg

Weigh all ingredients and make sure to use a block of parmesan cheese, rather than pre-grated parmesan. The flavour is so much better when you grate it yourself as the parmesan cheese holds onto its freshness when it has not been processed.

parmesan cheese
Photo: Village Dreaming

Method:

Mix the rye and white flour together.

Cut chilled butter into small 1cm-sized pieces, then use either your hands, a dough scraper or a food processor to mix butter and flour together.

If using your hands, place both flours on a clean workbench, mix together and add butter. Use your thumb and forefinger to press butter and flour together until you have a mixture that looks like coarse breadcrumbs.

Or use a dough scraper to cut into the flour butter mixture and keep cutting down on it until it resembles a coarse breadcrumb-like mixture.

If using a food processor, mix for about 10 seconds to achieve the same results.

kneading dough
Photo: Village Dreaming

Add parmesan and incorporate well.

If working with your hands on a workbench, make a well in the middle of the coarse breadcrumb mixture and drop in a whole egg. Push the flour in towards the egg and rub it into the egg with your hands or cut into it using the dough scraper. Cut down on the mixture and push it into itself, until all the flour is wet and moist with the egg.

If using a food processor add egg and mix until it comes together, about 10 to 15 seconds. Add very small incremental amounts of water if you feel it needs it, but rye flour is very sticky and moist and is unlikely to need any more than one whole egg.

How To Make Simple Homemade Pastry
Photo: Village Dreaming

Mix until the egg has been completely incorporated. The dough should feel a bit sticky and damp. Shape the dough into either a circle or a rectangle depending on the shape of the tin you will use.

Make sure the dough is very cohesive and relatively smooth. Place it in a bowl with a plate on top and let it rest for 30 minutes at room temperature (if in the low 20s, otherwise place in fridge).

How To Make Simple Homemade Pastry
Photo: Village Dreaming

Final steps

Dust your workbench with a generous dusting of white flour to ensure the dough doesn’t stick to the surface. Also visualise the final rolled out size to ensure the final dough area is dusted too.

Place dough on the floured surface and squash it down so that you can begin to work it with a rolling pin. Roll the dough from the centre out. Don’t roll backwards and forwards, just roll out from the middle and then turn the dough to allow you to keep rolling it out away from the centre until you have the shape you desire. Roll it out a little bigger than you need to allow for shrinkage.

Let it rest for 30 minutes and cover with a clean slightly damp tea towel. At the end of the rest period the pastry is ready to use.

rolling pin
Photo: Village Dreaming

Choose a pastry tin of your choice and place it on the workbench.

Remove the tea towel and lightly dust the top of the pastry with white flour, then place your rolling pin at one end of the pastry and roll the dough onto the rolling pin.

pastry stars
Photo: Village Dreaming

Lift and place the rolling pin at one end of the pastry tin, allowing for some overhang of pastry. Then gently roll out the pastry on top of the tin. Gently push the pastry down into the tin so that it is touching the bottom and the sides.

Use a fork to puncture holes at the base of the pastry. Then fill with a savoury mixture of your choice. Make sure the mixture has been allowed to cool before it is placed in the raw pastry casing.

raw pastry
Photo: Village Dreaming

Then either trim off excess pastry or fold the excess over the mixture and use some of the excess to make pastry shapes.

Enjoy the process for it is pure pleasure making things from scratch!

Images: Village Dreaming

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