Pastry

My pastry recipes are heavily inspired by the very generous and lovely Paul Allam and David McGuinness and their fantastic Bourke Street Bakery book. They sure know how to bake and, as they say, imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Thanks (I think) for increasing my obsession with great pies, and influencing me to form a relationship with sausage rolls too — damn you!

Savoury shortcrust pastry

Makes enough for 6 individual pie or quiche bases

300 g (10½ oz/2 cups) plain (all-purpose) flour, sifted

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

150 g (5½ oz) unsalted butter, cut into 1 cm (½ inch) dice and chilled

1½ teaspoons strained fresh lemon juice

60–80 ml (2–2½ fl oz/¼–¹/₃ cup) iced water

This pastry is easy to work with, and the recipe can easily be doubled.

Put the flour and salt in a food processor. Add the butter, then leave to sit for a few minutes to soften the butter slightly — but it should still be cold.

Pulse in short bursts until the mixture just forms roughish crumbs.

Combine the lemon juice and 60 ml (2 fl oz/¼ cup) of the iced water, then drizzle half the liquid over the crumbs. Pulse until the mixture just starts to clump. Drizzle with the remaining water and lemon juice mixture and pulse again until the dough just starts to cling together, adding the remaining water if needed.

Gather the dough up quickly and pat into a disc about 15 cm (6 inches) wide and 2 cm (¾ inch) thick. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a few hours, or overnight. Use as instructed in individual recipes.