More pastry choices …

… and the recipes too.

Next up a fast flaky pastry. Home-made puff pastry is delicious but it's time consuming and so if you want a fast fix and have never tackled flaky pastry before, the following recipe is a great place to start.

Flaky pastry is also known as “rough puff”. In the recipe below the butter (or shortening) is grated into the flour – if you're making puff pastry the butter is cut into rectangles and the dough and butter are rolled and folded repeatedly to form thin sheets of pastry. Like I said puff pastry takes a long time!

Fast Flaky Pastry

Serves 2

75g of unsalted butter – chilled in the freezer

110g plain flour

pinch of salt

4 tablespoons of ice cold water

Plan ahead - before you begin weigh out your butter, wrap it in foil and put it in the freezer – 30-40 minutes. Place the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. You'll need a cheese grater on stand-by. Remove the butter from the freezer and fold back the foil – it's easier to control when you grate the butter into a heap in the middle of the flour and salt. You can dip the butter into the flour to prevent any sticking.

Using a round bladed knife mix the butter into the flour and salt. Sprinkle two tablespoons of water into the pastry and mix well. Add another two tablespoons and continue to mix. Finally use your hand to bring together – you're aiming for a clean bowl so no bits of pastry left in the bowl. Have a sheet of cling film ready – you can now use both hands to mould the pastry into whatever shape you require. Place on the cling film and wrap.

Rest it in the fridge before use or place the cling filmed pastry in a bag and freeze.

This is a quick and easy flaky pastry, perfect for a pie lid.

If you have frozen the pastry, transfer it to the freezer overnight, ready to use the following day.

Then there's wholemeal!