Fabulous Unconventional Shortcrust
Fabulous Unconventional Shortcrust
In my working life as a cook for a catering company I was often dubbed the Queen of Tartlets. I was proud of my pastry making ability and could effortlessly whip up hundreds of pastry cases using a classic butter rich pâte brisée recipe which never failed. Since I’ve been forced to eliminate wheat from my diet that tried and true classic pastry recipe has been relegated to the archives and I’ve been on a quest to find a contemporary replacement. It’s been a reluctant search. I love modern food but I firmly believe there are recipes that are classics for a reason and shouldn’t really be messed about with. Sorry beloved pâte brisée.
I need a pastry recipe that has no wheat, or just a small amount, a pastry that can be rolled thinly, that handles without cracking and cooks to a beautiful crisp shell and cuts without crumbling. It goes without saying that the pastry must also have a deliciously buttery flavour and pleasant mouthfeel.
I’d lost count of the number of recipes tested and rejected before this beauty caught my eye. It’s from the marvellously adaptive Claire Aldous at foodie magazine, “Dish,” from New Zealand, issue number 66.
The recipe makes sufficient to line two 20cm deep fluted tart tins and six shallow 10cm tartlet dishes. It made an elastic dough that was easy to handle, didn’t crumble or break as I lined the tins nor did it shrink when baked blind.
I chose a classic Asparagus, Gruyere and Ham Quiche for the trial run and stored the extra dishes, ready lined in the freezer, then I made a lemon tart. A week later I made savoury tartlets for lunch with the spinach, feta and roasted tomato filling from the archives. The pastry lined tin went straight from the freezer to the oven and performed as if it was freshly made.
The very best part of this pastry recipe is that it tastes great too. Mission accomplished.
Spelt sour cream shortcrust
1 cup white spelt flour
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
150g chilled unsalted butter, diced
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons chia seeds
Put the flours, nut meal and salt into a food processor and pulse to combine.
Add the chilled butter and process until the flour resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
Add the cream and the chia seeds and pulse only until the dough forms a ball. Pastry is best handled as little as possible.
Tip the dough onto the bench and form into a flat disc, wrap in plastic until chill for 1 hour.
Grease the insides of 2 x 20cm deep fluted tart tins.
Dust the bench with a little spelt flour, then divide the dough in half. Roll the dough into a 30cm circles then line the tart tins.
Prick the base with a fork, then put the tin into the freeze for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Cut a piece of baking paper to fit inside the tart then fill with beans or rice to weigh down the pastry.
Bake for 15 mins, the reduce the oven temperature to 150C, lift out the weights on the baking paper and bake the pastry for a further 10 minutes.
Remove the pastry from the oven and set aside to cool.
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43 comments on “Fabulous Unconventional Shortcrust”
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Please Pass the Recipe by Sandra Gay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
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Yummy, sounds delicious! The Lebanese certainly know how to cook too… just love it 🙂
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and they’ve contributed enormously to the great microcosm that is Australia. Thanks for visiting…
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The recipe is absolutely amazing !
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Thanks Chef K
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Reblogged this on Chef Ceaser.
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I love that you’re using spelt flour with buckwheat here. I, too, have had to kiss wheat flour goodbye of late. I find spelt flour very expensive in our parts. Great recipe.
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I’ve been buying spelt in bulk Liz for baking slow fermented sourdough, it works out much cheaper than buying bread I can tolerate. This really is a very acceptable substitute for the real thing.
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Your love for good food comes through clearly in your writing. I appreciated the combination of the back story with the recipe.
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Thanks for stopping by and commenting 😀
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Me too! I’ll try this one out. 🙂
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I hope you like it too Dina 😀
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Your food looks so good.
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Thanks Connie 😃
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I never realized you had a professional culinary background! So cool! I don’t have to avoid wheat, but I’m all for playing with different flours, and I love the idea of almond meal and sour cream! Beautiful quiche!
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Thanks Mimi, it was hard work, but gratifying
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Thank you, several of my friends are avoiding gluten and this will be very useful. I am impressed by your research, well done.
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Thanks Liz but be aware, spelt is not gluten free.
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Great to have this unconventional shortcrust recipe. I particularly like the ‘nutty’ additions of buckwheat and almond meal. What would you use instead of chia seeds? Might be a bit difficult for me to get hold of. I agree with Glenda – life would definitely be boring without tarts!
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To be honest Deb, I think you could omit them but if you were concerned, psyllium husks would be a good substitute, they also absorb a lot of moisture
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Lovely filling combo and I would be keen to try this later on down the track using gf flour in place of the spelt. Or even better, hearing about your experiment with it! I like the idea of the chia seeds soaking up liquid and maybe adding some stability.
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I’ll give the GF flour a whirl and let you know. This is a recipe worth the effort….
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Sounds fabulous Sandra, and that combination adds a lot of flavour I imagine as well as being wheat free…
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With your eyes closed Beck you’d be hard pressed to pick this against a traditional pastry, it’s texture that separates them, in a good way
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This is rather exciting, Sandra. My friends are longing for my cherry pies, which I have not made for a few years. Do you think the pastry would work as a double crust pie? Thank you so much for sharing it with us. I’d say your title of Queen of Tartlets is still intact.
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Absolutely Ardys, it cooked to delicious crispness
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Thanks for this, Sandra…sounds promising, I’ll give it a go soon
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You’re welcome Sue, let me know how you like it
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I will if I remember!!
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This looks like a winner. I am keen to try it soon as I do fancy a nice quiche. Great combo, asparagus and gruyere. Are the chia seeds essential? I know they would add some crunch but as I stock all the other items, I am wondering if I can just leave them out?
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Good question Francesca. Yes chia adds crunch but it also has the ability to absorb loads of moisture and so I think it contributes to the flexible texture and easy to handle nature of the unbaked dough. Another modification worth trying. It’s extra good pastry…
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Just had a thought, maybe substitute the chia with psyllium husks, they are also hydrscopic
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yes, now you have me thinking…I will go shopping and succumb to the chia, in the hope that I make enough pastry to use them up.I am getting 15 eggs a day!!!, so there will be quiche.
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Oh dear, I allowed my hopes to be raised when I saw the words “…recipe that has no wheat”. Never mind, I’ll just have to keep buying the commercial GF stuff. My hands are too warm to make good pastry, anyway…
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I think it’s worth giving this a whirl replacing the spelt with GF flour. The almonds, buckwheat and chia give it plenty of strength texture and character, in fact I’ll give it a go…..
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If you have success, it’ll be worth me trying with soured cream I’ve treated with lactase. I do love a caramelised onion and swiss cheese tart, or a tarte au citron!
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I’ll let you know how it goes. Woolies have Liddell’s lactose free sour cream.
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Righto. I rarely use it, so I’d have just soured some Zymil cream instead, but it’s good to know I can get it ready made!
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Hi Sandra, so glad you have found a recipe that works with your diet. What would life without tarts be?
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Thanks Glenda. Life would be boring without tarts…
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