Take 3 Ingredients: Wholemeal Short Crust Pastry – recipe

As part of my research for the tea recipe e-book I’m working on, I have developed a low sodium pastry recipe. It’s contains wholemeal flour so it’s a little healthier than the usual short-crust pastry – if you overlook the butter 🙂

Ingredients:

250g/8oz plain wholemeal flour
110g/4oz butter, cubed
60-90ml/4-6 tbsp cold water

Method:

Place the flour in a large bowl and add the cubes of butter.
Use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until you have a mixture that resembles coarse breadcrumbs with no large lumps of butter remaining. Try to work quickly so that it does not become greasy.
Using a knife, stir in just enough of the cold water to bind the dough together.
Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill for 15-20 minutes before using.
Alternatively using a food processor, put the flour and butter in the food processor and pulse until the fat is rubbed into the flour.
With the motor running, gradually add the water through the funnel until the dough comes together. Only add enough water to bind it and then stop.
Wrap the dough in clingfilm as before and chill for 15-20 minutes before using.

As I don’t cook with a lot of salt, there isn’t any in my recipe, however, if you miss it, just add 2 tsp of salt to the flour before adding the butter. You can also experiment with using flavoured salts, such as celery salt, to add taste.