Basic Sweet Shortcrust Pastry. Learn how to make sweet shortcrust pastry. You'll be surprised how easy it is, then you can make all sorts of desserts like our apple and blackberry pies. Basic shortcrust pastry is the easiest pastry to make, it is a versatile pastry suitable for sweet or savory dishes.

Ingredients of Basic Sweet Shortcrust Pastry

1. Prepare 250 g of plain flour, sifted.
2. You need 125 g of cold unsalted butter, diced.
3. You need 100 g of pure icing sugar, sifted.
4. Prepare Pinch of salt.
5. You need 1 teaspoon of vanilla paste or extract.
6. It’s 2 of egg yolks.
7. It’s 1 tablespoon of milk.

Use flour on the board and rolling pin to roll pastry out. Cut out bottoms and place in tin. One teaspoon of sweet mincemeat per pie. Put tops on using slightly smaller pastry cutter.

Basic Sweet Shortcrust Pastry step by step

1. In a food processor, process flour, sugar, salt and butter until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add egg yolks, vanilla, and milk, pulse till the dough comes together..
2. Without overworking the dough, form dough into a ball and place in a clean bowl, then wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes to rest..
3. Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced). Lightly grease a 22cm loose-bottomed tart tin and line base with baking paper.
4. Place pastry on a lightly floured work surface or between two parchment papers. Using a lightly dusted rolling pin, start to evenly flatten roll dough, keeping it as round and neat as possible around the edges making an indent in dough at quarter turns. With even pressure, turn and lift pastry in a clockwise direction, rolling to a thickness of approximately 3mm..
5. Carefully line the tart tin with the pastry, and chill in the refrigerator for 15 minutes..
6. Blind bake the pastry for 15 mins, remove the baking beans from the tart and bake for a further 10 mins. Remove tart from oven, allow to cool completely before filling..

Brush the tops with a little milk and sprinkle on top with a pinch of sugar. Basic sweet shortcrust pastry is a beautiful thing. It can be used for pies, tarts and pastries of all sorts. It seems though, that shortcrust pastry is sometimes feared, that it is too hard to make, too complicated, or some are afraid it won't turn out. This sweet shortcrust pastry freezes beautifully so you can prepare it in advance if you need to make a few pies or tarts.