What's the ultimate sweet shortcrust pastry recipe?

[Jonny69]

I've made some very very good mincemeat to make mince pies with. Trouble is, now I need a very very good sweet shortcrust recipe to go with it! It needs to be short, sweet and incredibly buttery - good enough to eat by itself. Any recommendations? I've seen Michel Roux jr knock something up with butter, flour, sugar and egg yolk, to make a really good looking deep yellow pastry. I'm looking for something like that.

 

[randomshenans]

The key for this is not to overwork it. You can use a very simple recipe indeed like:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/shortcrustpastry_1278 but use an egg instead of the water if you want it richer. (don't use the method though, it gets too much heat in it)

But you don't want to be kneading or working it much at all. Slap all the bits in a blender, pulse it a bit at a time until the butter has got in to everything and you have like big crumbs. Then just use your hands to ball it all together just so it sticks together and then fridge it for 30mins. You don't want the fats to melt that's the main thing.

Take it out the fridge and roll out on floured surface and use. Simple. I don't like the "use your fingers to crumb it" method in the above link though, men have hot hands normally and you want the fats only to breakdown in the cooking not the pastry stage as this will make your pastry more crisp and shorter.

 

[WillyNelson]

Most shortcrust recipes wil be the same half fat to four ratio and whether you use sugar to sweeten it or an egg to bind instead of water is up to you. Personally I just go with a plain pastry for mince pies as the mincemeat should be sweet enough.

The key is to work as quickly as possible and as little as possible. Working the pastry for too long stretches the gluten chains making the pastry tough and chewy and you want to keep that gluten as short as possible, hence short-crust. Think the opposite of breadmaking. IMO using a food mixer will overwork it no matter how hard you try.

Half butter and half lard is a must. Make sure it's at room temperature so you can rub it in quickly. Once you've got a good crumb with the flour & butter use a knife to chop in a little bit of water (or egg) at a time to bind it together. Once it's coming together just press it into a lump in the bowl, wrap in clingfilm & chill before rolling.

Last year I hit perfection with a crisp, light pastry. My sister, outspokenly critical if necessary, accused the prior year's or being overworked but last year I got the nod of approval.