Topic: Gluten free short crust pastry

[PurpleHeather]

I had to try to make it and did so.

8oz of Doves flour
4oz Lard
4 tablespoons full of water

I used a blender but you could use the rubbing in method

Mash the flour and lard then add the water.

Put the mix in the fridge for as long as possible, at least half an hour. If it seems wet do not worry . This is not the same mix most pastry makers are used to.


Rolling out.

I put some cling film on the work top and sprinled a bit of flour on it then put half the pastry on top.

It depends on how skilled you are at rolling pastry out at this stage. the thinner you can get it the better.

I lined a flan dish with some, added the filling, put a crust on top.

The pastry does not stretch unlike wheat pastry.

The remainder I used as a flan base.

After baking the result was a very crisp crust.

Fine for a flan or a tart.

Some people might enjoy the crisp pastry

I am glad I tried it for the knowledge but have to admit, it did not thrill me as an alternative to the real thing which I can never ever enjoy again.

Pies were considered as poor man's food but when you can never enjoy them again, they suddenly obtain the luxury rating.

[Fork]

Thanks for that recipe.Will copy it down for my wife.She does get frozen steak pies npw and again and the pastry is good....but the filling is not always great....and at the price we pay I would have expected a more tender filing.

[PurpleHeather]

I do not think that the end result is good enough to make a note of But if the chef can roll the pasty thin enough, it can be used  acceptably for a base .

[PurpleHeather]

After a while, the pastry, once it has gone cold turns into concrete. Luckily the dog thinks it is great. He has teeth like a shark.

The only way to eat it is straight out of the oven. I stress the pastry has to be very thin indeed.

I will continue to work on this because I can buy very nice gluten free shortbread biscuits. I can also make a decent crumble. Perhaps the sugar is the key here. Working without wheat yeilds a different challange. No one wants a sweet crust on a steak and kidney pie.

If any one has got a recipe which they have tried I would be very grateful. Please do not quote something which is on the internet. It has to be something tried. There are tons of rubbish recipes on the internet so I don't want any one to waste time googling. I have done it myself. 

I can make a decent Yorkshire pudding too by the way. It is weird because  baking powder is essential, yet a good wheat based Yorkshire Pud is plain flour and instead of letting it rest, it has to be beaten hard just before pouring into the moulds. Doves gluten free self raising flour works well and it needs 3 eggs instead of one.

Thanks to any one who can come back with any recipe they have tried themselves.

If any one is interested, I made what some people call rissoles. That is minced meat and seasoning with added egg to bind. The sloppy mix we would have bound up with flour or bread crumbs, I used instant mash.  It works. Cheap instant mash mix (16p) from Asda, not a full pack, just enough to bind.

[Jeannine]

Try it by freezing your fat, then grating, or small dicing  it into the flour, barely handle it if you can, pat into a plate rather than roll it.  You should see lumps of fat in the mix, if you don't you have overworked it and it will be tough It should come much lighter this way. I make it for a relative and although it is different to regular pastry it is light.

I do make a bigger amount at a time and freeze it in flan sized amounts. Fluid I use is 1 well beaten egg, 1 tablespoon of white vinegar in a cup together , then ice cold water to bring it up tp 8 fluid ounces .This is to 5 1/2-6 cups of flour (depending on the moisture content in your flour)and 1lb of fat.

Cup size is a basic baking cup measure, it holds 8 fluid ounces (250 ml) of liquid, anything that holds that amount of fluid is the right size to be used as a measuring cup for the fluid and flour.

Forget the weight,  it is a US recipe ,it works just as well with volume measuring.

Pastry should be softish, not stiff.

XX Jeannine

[jennym]

Try adding a bit of potato mix and a bit of cornflour to your Doves, (approx 1/8th in total by weight) this does make it a bit more "stretchy". I've mixed ground almonds in too, to make shortbread, nice and crumbly.
Often wondered, but never got round to it, whether cooking up some rice and then liquidising it, then adding that to the flour would give a good result, the reason being that 've seen online but never bought something called sweet rice flour which I understand is more glutinous.

[PurpleHeather]

Great tips there. I could have well over mixed the flour and fat because I used a food processor. I get the idea from what you say that a' rough puff' pastry style of making it might work better.

Will have another go.

Has any one made scones? Like pastry, it is something else I never see. gluten free.

[grannyjanny]

Hi PH. Someone on Rachel's site has a wife with ceolic disease & she buys g/f scones. They are flown in from South Africa. She couldn't get them when the ash cloud was about so looked on a pack in the freezer.

[Fork]

Thanks for the PM grannyjanny,tried to reply but your "inbox" is full

[grannyjanny]

Hope it was useful. Shouldn't be full now ;).

[Jeannine]

I wouldn't go to the trouble of dotting about doing a rough puff pastry, the method is very simlar to the way I make all my pastry .

I work my ice cold fat into chilled flour until the fat lumps are a mixture to the size of peas and marbles, add the ice cold fluids,egg, water, vinegar as before and mix it very lightly till barely blended, don't knead it. Rest in fridge.When I roll out you can see the flattened pieces of fat(reason for being cold).

Work as little as possible. I forget I do also add 1/2 teaspoon salt to both pastries.

Wether with regular flour or a gluten free, it should be light, although to be honest the gluten free will not be the same as the regular, but the regular one should be so light and flaky , the secret is simply the marbles and peas +ice cold everything.

XX Jeannine

[PurpleHeather]

It would help volumes to visit the kitchen and watch.

But we can't do that.

Hate those You Tube entries where some one has over tried to show the rest of the world 'how to'. It never seems to work.

I think next time I will try a frozen fat, grated into Doves flour and add a smidgin of dried potato.

Then mix in the water by hand.

Chill and then try to roll out using cling film instead of flour to stop sticking.

[Jeannine]

I taught pastry making to Mums and  primary school kids when working in  school in  the UK,with the couple of rules I said it is real easy to do and quick. We used to call in Perfect Pastry. This is the basic everyday pastry used in the Norh America for most things,, and yes I personally use lard but veggie shortening works just as good,but not butter ot marg for this one.

XX Jeannine

[grannyjanny]

Has anyone tried xanthum gum mixed in? I see it a lot in g/f recipes.

[jennym]

I think the Dove's flour has xanthan gum in already, they do sell it separately too.

[PurpleHeather]

This gluten free is a totally new science for those of us who were at worst fairly decent family bakers with wheat.

It took me a long time to get perfect wheat based shortcrust pastry etc.

Now I can do it . I can not eat it. (swear word here)

Baking for one is usually not worth it especially when that one is one's self. Doing for a loved one, as a labour of love, it is different.

I made a huge chocolate cake, gluten free and it was lovely, but then every one said, "No we wont eat it, it is yours, kindness no doubt in some ways but perhaps they prefered to eat other things (hard to be certain) and then five days later, I was fed up with it" The recipe said three eggs. Now if it was two of four I could have halved it. But I don't fancy it again.

Feeling sorry for myself now. ............sad

There certainly seems to be a lot of us gluten free people around. The foods, ready made are very expensive from the supermarkets and some are not great. I think that a lot of it is because of the shelf life supermarkets demand to sell it means the quality is lost.

We all know that a normal freshly baked, still warm pie or sausage roll is delicious yet a two or three day old one is yuckkie. But perhaps there is a stage where the thing could be frozen and brought back to life later.

I am grateful for all advice on baking from those who have tried a recipe. I feel sure that there are lots of people who are shy about comig in here. Please don't be.

[sunloving]

Hiya

Ive been using rice flour for cakes and scones for a couple of years (treating it like plain flour) I'm not gluten free person and ive never really noticed any difference. (Someone at my work is)

I use a book called red velvet and chocolate heartache that uses rice flour a lot rather than wheat flour.

Never used it for pastry but it seems to behave itself otherwise.

good luck finding  recipie
x sunloving

[PurpleHeather]

I have got it. Well good enough for me

Not cheap and not easy to roll out. So only use small moulds for pies and tarts. Dont try a family sized one if you are not expert. It may be possible but at this stage I found individual sized pies were best for me.

Did it today because, I wanted to make some meringues and I had three egg yolks going spare.....

6 oz of Doves plain flour
2oz Asda smart price instant mashed potato mix (yes honestly)
2 oz lard
2 oz butter
three egg yolks made up to 100 mls with water

In a blender put in all the top 4 ingredients and blitz roughly,

add the egg yolks and water but do not blend until the lot is a lump, (like normal pastry) leave it rough, a bit like crumble which is slightly over and then put into a plastic bag. Squash it together a bit and chill in the fridge for as long as you can (at least half an hour).

To roll out

put a layer of cling film then a bit of the dough.

Cover with another layer of cling film and roll out (normally we would use a sprinkle of flour here)

Now this is the clever bit because this pastry is frail

Find a bowl or jar smaller than the dish you want to use as a base and with the pastry still in the two layers of cling film mould it around. It will be on top but will actuall form the base.

Peel off the bit of cling film around the pastry which will form the base.

That will leave you with naked pastry on top. Put the dish you are going to bake the pastry in on to that naked bit and (it will be upside down)

Hope you are still following me here..

Then gently turn everything the other way up

Take away the mould you used and gently take away the cling film layer

You should then get a tart.

Add the filling to the pie or use it for a quiche or tart.


Now because of the difficulty involved, I used only individual moulds.

I think the moulding is the hard bit..

It is NOT true pastry, rather like a cross between short crust and shortbread.

I think it is only fair to add that the advice of others on this link helped me in making what I will certainly make again.

Thanks a lot......... I enjoyed my meal.........