Sweet Short Pastry Recipes

Steps:

• Put the flour and butter in a food processor and blitz to bread crumbs. If using your hands, rub the butter and flour together until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs. Add the egg yolks (and if making sweet pastry, the sugar) and a pinch of salt and stir together with a knife. Squidge the mixture together into a ball. If the pastry feels very dry add the water (or if making sweet pastry, the cream or milk), but try and get by without for a more tender pastry.
• Once the pastry is all squidged together, pop it in the refrigerator to rest for 30 minutes.
• After 30 minutes, remove it from the refrigerator and let it warm up a little (if you use it straight from the refrigerator and try to roll it out, the pastry will just be a hopeless crumbly mess). Roll the pastry out on a lightly floured board and use as required.

Steps:

• Put flour and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer or food processor. Add butter and quickly cut it into flour until mixture resembles coarse meal.
• Add ice water and mix briefly, about 30 seconds, to form a soft dough. Remove dough, shape into a thick disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight. Bring to cool room temperature before rolling.
• To roll, lightly flour dough and counter. Roll out gradually, periodically letting dough rest for a moment before continuing. This makes rolling easier and will keep dough from shrinking back during baking.
• Roll dough to a thin round approximately 13 inches in diameter, then trim to make a 12-inch circle (refrigerate and save trimmings for patching). Lay dough loosely into a 9 1/2-inch fluted tart pan with removable bottom, letting it relax a bit. Fold overlap back inside to make a double thickness, then press firmly against the pan so the finished edge is slightly higher than the pan. Refrigerate or freeze for an hour before pre-baking.