pastry

[herbidacious]

I am just wondering which fats people use for pastry. I don't make it often (but a lot more often than cakes ) Recipes often seem to call for all butter these days. My mother always used white fat.
What do people use? I realize it will depend on what you are doing with it.
(I am going to make a leek and Wensleydale tart/flan/quiche today...)

[Pepper Pig]

I used to use half Stork - the hard kind - and half lard but, on the rare occasions I make shortcrust have replaced the Stork with salted butter.

[mistakened]

I am having a terrible time with pastry just now, same recipe, same ingredients but somehow I have a problem. I have temporally given up pastry making

Moira

[Suffs]

I usually use 50:50 butter and lard for shortcrust … if it’s a sweet tart I might use all butter.
If cooking for a vegetarian I would either use all butter or replace the lard with Trex.

[Suffs]

Moira, if you recall I had a problem with pastry during lockdown
… it was quite heavy and doughy whatever I did. I put it down to poor quality grain being used for the flour (all I I could get was supermarket own brands which had always been ok in the past but what with Brexit, lockdown abd Russian behaviour ….
When Homepride and McDougalls eventually became available in the shops again my pastry returned to its usual quality.

[Earthmaiden]

I've always got butter in the house so if making it without planning it will be all butter. For 'best' I use half butter and half white fat - either lard or one of the white vegetable shortenings on offer. Growing up, we always used hard margarine for baking and I'm sure it is still OK if you are not thinking of health aspects etc.

All butter is always more 'melt in the mouth' and better, IMO for sweet things than savoury even if not making a sweet crust.

[Stokey Sue]

I've always got butter in the house so if making it without planning it will be all butter. For 'best' I use half butter and half white fat - either lard or one of the white vegetable shortenings on offer. Growing up, we always used hard margarine for baking and I'm sure it is still OK if you are not thinking of health aspects etc.

Ditto, if I just want to make a small amount of pastry "on the fly" fridge cold butter into the food processor and all done in a minute

If I am planning on a bout of quiche making or similar, I buy a block of white fat - they took the nasty trans fats out of both white fat and baking margarine long ago. But sweet pastry is all butter and egg to bind, so quite rich and crumbly

If I'm doing a lot of baking for a crowd I have sometimes bought kosher (Tomor) or other 100% plant based baking margarine as it means pretty much anyone who eats flour can have it, depending on filling

Fanny Craddock's Sweet Pastry adapted for Magimix
8oz/ 225g plain (pastry) flour. a pinch of salt, and 5 oz/140g cold butter in pieces pulsed until the mixture resembles bread crumbs
Sprinkle in a rounded TBS (I suppose about an ounce or 30g) caster sugar and pulse once to mix a bit (not rubbing in the sugar seems to make a real difference to the texture)
Add an egg yolk and enough very cold water to bring the dough together when pulsed a few times again

Gather into a disc* and chill at least 30 minutes before rolling

*Fanny said roll into a ball, but Anna Olson pointed out if you get it into a nice smooth disc it's then much easier to roll it out into a thinner disc without cracking one of those things that's very obvious once someone else spots it.

[PatsyMFagan]

I usually use 50:50 butter and lard for shortcrust … if it’s a sweet tart I might use all butter.
If cooking for a vegetarian I would either use all butter or replace the lard with Trex.

I use the same recipe, especially for sausage rolls, but this year will be making mince pies for a friend who doesn't eat pork (I think lard is from pig fat ?), so thanks for the suggestion of Trex

[aero280]

I’m afraid that I only make rough puff when I do a pasty. All the rest is a rolled sheet from the supermarket. If it’s good enough for Mary Berry………

[Cheezy_Jazzy]

Sadly pastry is my nemesis so I buy either the ready to roll or the ready rolled. Even then it often ends up looking like a jigsaw puzzle!

[herbidacious]

Thanks all.

I did wonder if not using butter was an economy thing for my mother (butter was considered too expensive to buy for us in the '70s and early 80s)/hang over from the war. I suppose a partial answer to that would be to look at Mrs Beeton or the like. Question is why do so many recipes now say all butter. Is that a hangover from when white fat was full of nasties?

Will buy some white fat next time we go to the big supermarket (or force myself to go out later. I need milk too... Otherwise today's quiche pastry will have to be all butter.)
btw I read Trex that as T Rex, weirdly for the first time ever... (v tired!)

[miss mouse]

I’m afraid that I only make rough puff when I do a pasty. All the rest is a rolled sheet from the supermarket. If it’s good enough for Mary Berry………

That's trickier than shortcrust though.

'Gallette' seems to be all the rage now, basically a flan without the the tin.

Sadly pastry is my nemesis so I buy either the ready to roll or the ready rolled. Even then it often ends up looking like a jigsaw puzzle! :(

Oh dear, you must keep repeating a mis-step somewhere. Do you have a small processor? It's easy done in that, a bit hit-and-miss before I did have one.

[herbidacious]

I find flaky pastry (as in freeze and grate the butter) is really easy and successful, but I hate grating the butter.

[Earthmaiden]

Question is why do so many recipes now say all butter. Is that a hangover from when white fat was full of nasties?

I think so. Margarines, lard and vegetable shortenings all went out of vogue and butter came back 'in'. I suspect cheap butter got cheaper too. We'd never have used butter for cooking when I was a child because of the expense.

Your original post just says 'pastry' but we've veered towards plain or sweet shortcrust. I would use butter for rough puff and frozen for puff. Lard for hot water pastry.

[WWordsworth]

I hate grating the butter.

I really dislike grating anything.
Such a chore.

[aero280]

I have a small cheese grater with a rotating handle! It will grate anything though. I don't know how long it will last. It's quite old and has only just been returned to use, after being found in the back of a bottom drawer!

[Cheezy_Jazzy]

That's trickier than shortcrust though.

'Gallette' seems to be all the rage now, basically a flan without the the tin.

Sadly pastry is my nemesis so I buy either the ready to roll or the ready rolled. Even then it often ends up looking like a jigsaw puzzle!

Oh dear, you must keep repeating a mis-step somewhere. Do you have a small processor? It's easy done in that, a bit hit-and-miss before I did have one.
[/quote]

My shortcrust pastry is just too short! At one point I practiced making pastry every week (during my GCSEs) and it never really got better.

My Kenwood is still broken so no baking or pastry will be done until it's fixed unless I do flapjacks or scones as I always make them by hand.

[Badger's Mate]

I make shortcrust with butter or vegetable fat for those that want it. Mum used to use lard. I’ll buy all-butter puff or filo if I want those. I have been threatening to make hot water crust pastry for as long as Mrs B has been threatening to make choux, about 30 years.

[Earthmaiden]

Both are relatively easy, BM!

[miss mouse]

Gordon Ramsey...(I know but his recipes work IME) has a good and easy hot water crust in his pub book. Filo...never, the Turkish supermarket has a better one than the usual suspect. Puff I buy.