Mastering Gluten Free Pastry
Pastry, especially of the gluten free variety, is notoriously tricky to work with.
With butter-based pastries and crusts you need to work with chilled and cubed or grated butter.
In warmer weather you’ll often end up with a stickier dough and in cold weather you may need to mix it for longer and hand mould it into something workable.
Sometimes you may need to add a little milk or egg yolk as a binder. Pastry is more vulnerable to variables than other forms of baking, room temperature, moisture levels and your body temperature all have an effect.
For best results, we recommend always chilling in the fridge before using (30 minutes minimum).
To roll out, use a liberal dusting of tapioca flour and lay the pastry between two sheets of baking parchment. Use a rolling pin to roll to the required thickness. Peel off the top sheet of parchment and flip the pastry over – directly into your prepared tin. Carefully peel off the second layer of paper and hand squidge any breakages back together.
Our pastry recipes can usually bear a little hand-moulding but it’s best to run your hands under cold water to avoid getting the pastry too warm.
We’re currently putting the final touches to our second cook book, featuring quite a few gorgeous recipes featuring homemade pastry. We’ll keep you posted on it’s progress but, fingers crossed, it should be published next year (we’re self publishing, hence it’s taken a tad longer to produce than we expected!). Why not try our Sweet Almond recipe? Or our Mini Mincemeat Tarts Recipe which is pictured above and perfect for the Christmas season!