Hot Water Crust Pastry
From the book
Food DIY: How to Make Your Own Everything: sausages to smoked salmon, sourdough to sloe gin, bacon to buns by Tim Hayward
Introduction
Makes about 750g pastry
Easy
Ingredients
| 475g | strong white bread flour |
| 5g | salt |
| 125g | water |
| 175g | commercial lard or carefully hoarded beef fat |
Instructions
Mix the flour in a bowl with the salt. Bring the water to the boil in a pan and melt the lard or dripping in it, then pour the hot liquid into the bowl of flour and begin combining it with a palette knife.
As soon as the dough is cool enough to handle, work it together with your fingers, then form it into a ball. Leave to cool and rest for a few minutes before using. The dough needs to be warm enough to be workable, but if you don’t rest it a little it remains elastic and will contract when baked.
