PERFECT PASTRY
Source of Recipe
mexicanfood.about.com
Recipe Link: http://mexicanfood.about.com/library/recipes/blpastry.htm Put:
5 cups of all purpose flour
1 pound of butter, margarine, shortening or lard (4 sticks
or 2 cups) into a large bowl and with a wire pastry blender, cut the butter into the flour until it is the texture of coarse corn meal. Then put:
1 large egg
1 tablespoon white vinegar
into a one cup measure and mix with a table fork. Then fill
to the one cup mark with cold water. Pour this into the flour and butter and with a table fork stir round and round until all has been gathered together into a rough ball. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and VERY GENTLY
knead into a ball. BE CAREFUL not to over work it. Actually, you are only just sort of shoving the pastry together, not really kneading. Over working pastry makes it very tough. Now, cut the pastry in half and form into
two disks about six inches in diameter. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for about 30 minutes. When ready to use, remove from the refrigerator, roll and use for any pastry need. This is enough pastry to make 2 two crust 8 to 9
inch pies with with enough dough left over for decorations.
Why Cold and Hot
You will often see instructions for pies and other pastry recipes that require you to chill the pastry, then put the item in an exceedingly hot oven, 500° for five minutes or so and then to reduce the heat to continue the baking.
Why is this?
The pastry is very moist. When you put that very cold, moist pastry into a very hot oven, it produces steam. Steam is a very powerful element. It can move locomotives and drive very large machinery. It has no problem at
all moving some flour around. What happens is that when you put the cold, moist dough into a very hot oven the resulting steam literally blows the pastry into stratas or layers thus producing a flaky crust.
And, the reason you do not want to over work the pastry dough is because, working the dough develops the gluten or protean in the flower, thus making it “glutinous” and the steam can’t blow it apart into those flaky little layers.
And so now you know more about pastry than you ever wanted to know.
Good Luck!
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