Yesterday I made my famous flaky pastry and using it to make some Sausage Rolls. I love making most types of pastry but for rough puff and flaky pastry I hate the method I was taught in school. The rigmarole of rolling out the pastry, turning and folding, chilling etc., feels my heart with dread until I came across a recipe for quick flaky pastry which I saw in a Delia Smith recipe book. I couldn’t believe my luck.
However I found that this recipe had too much fat in for my liking especially when using sausages in the pastry, which adds more fat to the mixture. I found the sausage rolls were too fatty and greasy once baked and I felt this spoilt them so I adjusted the recipe accordingly but kept the method , which I love. I am adding this recipe to my recipe book but the method I can explain on here.
The trick to making quick flaky pastry is as follows:-
- Freeze a block of butter the day before.
- Weigh out the flour and salt and grate the frozen butter into the bowl.
- Use the foil on the butter to keep the heat from your hands softening the butter too much.
- Keep knocking the grater to prevent the butter building up inside the grater.
- It seems a messy method but it really isn’t.
- Mix the grated butter and flour together before making a dough with the water.
- Once made the dough can be rolled out to a rectangular shape, folded in three , turned and rolled again, folded and wrapped then chilled for half an hour.
- Roll out the pastry to a large rectangle shape, trim the edges, then roll the sausages to fit.
- Cut the pastry up into the required width to fit the sausages.
- Egg wash the pastry edge, fold the pastry over the sausage to make one large sausage roll.
- Cut this into the required length of sausage rolls .
- Transfer onto a lined tray, brush with egg wash and make a tiny cut in the top of the sausage rolls.
- Bake for 30 minutes at gas7, until they are golden brown and make sure to check for soggy bottoms!!
Today I am not planning on baking anything but I have a feeling my children may want some treats for over the weekend so perhaps they can do the baking for me instead. It is half term this next week which I am really looking forward too. Plenty of down time with the children to recharge their batteries. I am going to get myself organised and do plenty of article writing today while I have peace and quiet but also plan what I am doing next week and write it all down on my weekly planner. I need to decide what I am going to bake and what ingredients I need to buy. I think I may take the weekend off from sitting in front of the computer screen but only if I manage to work through my jobs for today.
After looking on Pinterest I have been reading my recipes which were originally on my first recipe site on the website but now I have changed it all and I am redoing the recipes. Today, I am adding the French Apple Tarts recipe which I made up on the spur of the moment to use up apples one day in the kitchen as something different for the market stall. I have also made these tarts using pears and they work just as well. Ohhh pear and ginger would be a delicious combination. I may have to try this out for myself.
[lt_recipe name=”French Apple Tart” servings=”8″ prep_time=”55M” cook_time=”40M” total_time=”1H35M” difficulty=”Intermediate” print=”yes” summary=”Nutritionally, one tart contains 349 calories, 14.8g total fat (19% daily total fat), 53.2g total carbohydrate (19% daily total carbohydrate), 3.3g fibre (12% daily fibre) (based on a 2000 calorie diet).” image=”https://www.love-to-bake.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/frenchapple-Copy12.jpeg” ingredients=”For the pastry:-;8oz plain flour;1.5oz icing sugar;5oz butter;For the filling:-;2lb cooking apples;2 tbsp water;4 tbsp. orange marmalade;2oz caster sugar;1 lemon;For the topping:-;8oz eating apples;2 tbsp. lemon juice;1 tsp caster sugar” ]Preheat the oven to gas 6.;Set 8 foil tins on a baking tray.;For the pastry:-;Mix the flour and icing sugar together in a bowl.;Rub the butter into the flour until a dough is formed.;Roll out the pastry and cut out rounds to fit the tart dishes.;Blind bake the pastry bases for 10-15 minutes.;For the filling:-;In a pan melt the butter and add the prepared cooking apples and water.;Cook the apples till mushy.;Sieve the apples .;Add the marmalade, sugar and the grated lemon rind.;Cook for a further 10 -15 minutes until the mixture thickens, stir constantly.;Spoon the cooled mixture into the baked pastry cases.;For the topping:-;Decorate the tarts with sliced eating apples.;Brush with lemon juice and sprinkle with caster sugar before baking for a further 25 minutes.;Once baked and still warm brush with a marmalade glaze.;;;[/lt_recipe]
As you can see from this entry on my blog , my head is full of things that I need to have written down on paper or screen just to help me to relax and take it a bit easier. Here is hoping I can get everything done. 🙂
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