Se7en’s Ultimate Pastry Post: The Celebrity Chef Turns Pastry Chef for a Blogpost…

We live with a celebrity chef and he cooks and he cooks and he cooks… He gets it into his head to master a skill and then he pursues it until he has got it. One year it was zesting and this year it was pastry. So here you go: pastry in a nutshell from our chef…

1. Basic Pie Pastry

This is the basic pastry that you can use for quick pies, quiches and once you have stored it in the fridge for a while you can grate it over any stewed fruit to make a crumble… Now to be honest if you are really feeling lazy then you can just store a roll of puff pastry in your freezer for this… but what can I say the man really likes to cook!!!

Let’s Meet The Players:

• 200 ml cake flour
• 100 ml butter
• 2 tablespoons of cold water.

Let’s Play the Game:

1. Measure your ingredients carefully.

2. You can cut your butter into blocks, but it works well if you grate it as well.

3. Gently mix the flour and butter, until you have a breadcrumb consistency.

4. Very carefully add the water, a spoon at a time… your dough will gather into a ball.

5. Roll the ball of dough into it in cling wrap and store it in the fridge for about half an hour.

6. Roll out your pastry onto a floured surface and cut the pastry to fit your pie pans… in this case we made really easy jam pies. Circles in a muffin pan with a spoonful of jam and a pastry star on top of it.

7. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for about ten minutes. Lovely!!!

2. Choux Pastry

This is the pastry that always impresses everyone and it isn’t as hard to make as you might think…

Let’s Meet The Players:

• 150 ml cold water
• 1 teaspoon of caster sugar
• 50 g of butter
• 60 g of flour
• 2 eggs
• For the filling: a tub of cream
• For the topping a slab… of dark chocolate.

Let’s Play the Game:

1. Place the oven on 180 degrees Celsius to warm up while you are busy with other things.


2. Break your eggs into a small bowl and beat them.
   

3. Place the water, butter and sugar into a pot on a low heat and melt the butter. Once it is melted you can turn it up high and boil it.

4. As soon as it boils take it off the heat and, all at once, pour your flour into the butter mixture. Then stir away, until you have a smooth paste. Then begin to add the eggs a little at a time, stirring them into the mixture completely each time, before adding more.

5. Spoon the mixture onto a greased tray and space them well apart on the tray – they will expand.

6. Place them in the oven to bake for 20 -25 minutes, until they are golden brown.

7. Leave them on a rack to cool. As soon as you can, cut a slit in the side and then leave them until they are completely cool.

8. Whisk the cream…

9. And carefully melt the chocolate.

10. Fill the centre of each bun with whipped cream…

11. Drizzle the melted chocolate on top and you are done.

3. Filo Pastry

This pastry is very easy to use and makes any treat delicious, sweet or savoury your visitors will be impressed. There is only one way to bake with fill pastry…

Let’s Meet The Players:

• A roll of filo pastry from the supermarket, it comes as a roll but it is lot of fine sheets rolled into one.
• Copious amounts of melted butter.

Let’s Play the Game:

1. Grease your pie dish and then layer a sheet of filo pastry in the dish and paint it with melted butter, using a pastry brush. Place another layer of pastry on top of it and continue alternating pastry sheets and melted butter for about five sheets.

2. This is a savoury pie in progress… heaps of spinach from the garden, wilted in the pan with feta melted into it and some fresh cracked pepper.

3. Pop that into your pie dish and then add more layers of pastry and melted butter on top of your filling.

4. When you have enough layers, fold the edge pieces over, “gluing them” in place with more melted butter!!!

5. Pop that into the oven at about 180 degrees celsius until the pastry is golden brown. Even our child that isn’t mad about all things green will eat a spinach and feta fill pie with glee!!!

4. Instant Pastry:

And just recently we had a new tool added to our kitchen tools and a basically instant pastry that means we can have apple pie for breakfast, quiche for lunch and any other pie for dinner…

Let’s Meet the Players:

• 300g of flour.
• 150 g of butter.
• 2 – 3 tablespoons of cold water.

Let’s Play the Game:

1. Place the butter and the flour into the mixer and blend until you have a breadcrumb texture.

2. Add a little bit of water at a time and blend… repeat until your pastry forms a ball. Cover your pastry and place it in the fridge for half an hour…

3. Roll the pastry out to fit your pan and then carefully place it in your pie dish.

4. And I always forget to photograph this, but you need to bake these pie cases blind… that stops your pie from being soggy – a fairly important requirement for pies!!! Prick the base of your pie with a fork and then cover the base with a little baking paper. Pop some rice onto the baking paper and pop your pie into an oven that has been heated at 180 degrees celsius. The rice stops the paper from floating off and the pastry from rising significantly!!! When you see the top of your pie going golden brown remove it from the oven and let it cool. Remove the rice and the baking paper when they are cool enough.

5. At this stage your pie is ready to be filled with filling and this case we had some apples bubbling on the stove.

6. You can leave it as it is or you can grate some cold pastry on top of your pie. Then place it back into the oven for a couple of minutes, until it is golden brown.

7. Serve it with cream or ice-cream and you will be a winner!!!

And that is pastry folks… with love from our Celebrity Chef… Not nearly as hard as it looks and always very impressive!!! Honestly, I can’t wait to see what is next on the menu!!!