Short Pastry
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Rub the dripping into the flour with your fingers.
Add the salt and baking powder.
Make the pastry
Mix to a stiff paste with water.
Roll out and use as required.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the structure of the pastry when mixed with water.
- Dripping
- Coats the flour particles to shorten gluten and give a crumbly, tender texture.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas to lift the pastry slightly and keep it light.
The step that matters
Rubbing the dripping into the flour. Work the fat in lightly with your fingertips until it looks like breadcrumbs. Coating the flour with fat limits gluten formation, so overworking or warm hands make the pastry tough and greasy.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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