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Sweet pastry (1 Viewer)

Breadlady

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Hi Angie, please can you give me some hints and tips for pre cooking sweet pastry, or point me to a thread on here. I very often need to pre - bake a sweet pastry case for e.g Bakewell tar. All recipes for bakewell filling say bake at 180, gas 4 my pre- cooked case then burns even if I cover with foil. Please can you suggest temperatures and times For the cases. I cook my savoury cases at 190 gas 5 for 10 mins with beans then 5 without. Many thanks
 
Hi Liz

When I make my Bakewell Tart, I don't pre-bake the base and bake it at 175°C.



If you want to pre-bake the bases, do them from chilled and either bake at 180° for 15 mins (with beans) and then 5 mins without the beans or do the same as you're doing with your savoury at the 190° for 10 mins and then a further 5 mins. Or until they are golden. You might want to trial this to ensure you're getting the pre-baked golden look you want.

As for good pastry practice/troubleshooting, try the following:
  • Make sure you dock (prick with a fork) your pastry before baking.
  • Chill the dough. This solidifies the butter in it, which in turn stops the fats from breaking down (melting) in the pastry before they hit the oven allowing the edges to remain thick and intact. It's usually thinnest at the edges, so any way to prevent the edges from browning/baking quicker would be helpful.
  • Ensure you don't have any hot spots in your oven. If it's burning/scorching the edge all the way around the pie, then that would suggest too long baking or temp too high. However, if it is just burning on one side, you may have hot spots in your oven. If so, turn the pie around halfway through baking. This should hopefully prevent any burning or too much browning going on.
  • I know you use foil, but I do know they do silicone pie crust shields. In all honesty, I don't know whether they are any good because I've never used one, but they might be something you want to try and may help with preventing the scorched edges.
I think I've covered everything for you, but if you need anything else, just let me know.
 

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