This is a great, EASY classic shortcrust pastry recipe made using a food processor, very slightly adapted from this recipe by Emeril Lagasse. This is the recipe I've been using for years and years, and it has never failed me! It does not have egg in it (some recipes do), which makes it crisper and more buttery, yet soft enough to cut through with a fork with barely any effort. The measures in this recipe work with both US and metric (rest of world!) measures.See note for using frozen shortcrust pastry.
Prep Time15 minutesmins
Cook Time35 minutesmins
Total Time50 minutesmins
Cuisine: French
Servings: 8
Author: Nagi | RecipeTin Eats
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups / 185gplain white flour(all purpose flour)
1/4tspsalt
100 g / 7 tbspunsalted butter, cold, cut into 1cm/ 1/3" cubes
2 1/2tbspice cold water (+ more as required)
Instructions
Place flour, salt and butter in a food processor.
Pulse 10 times or until it looks like breadcrumbs.
With the motor running on low, pour 2.5 tbsp of water into the tube feeder.
Turn up to high and blitz for 30 seconds or until it turns into a ball of dough. Initially it will look like breadcrumbs, then it will turn into a ball of soft dough - some random escaped bits is fine. If it doesn't look like its coming together at 20 seconds, add another 1/2 tbsp of water. Don't blitz longer than 30 seconds at most.
Form a disc, wrap in cling wrap. If there are escaped crumble bits, that's fine - just press them in. Refrigerate for 1 - 3 hours.
Preheat oven to 200C/390F (standard) or 180C/350F (convection / fan forced)
Sprinkle work surface with flour, unwrap dough and place on the flour. Sprinkle top with flour, then roll out into a 27cm/11" round.
Gently roll the pastry so it wraps around the rolling pin.
Unroll it over the quiche pan - 23cm / 9".
Press the pastry into the edges of the quiche pan, patching up edges if required (if pastry doesn't quite reach top of rim).
Place a large piece of parchment paper over the pastry, then fill with baking beads or lots of rice or dried beans to weight it down (stops base from puffing up and helps reduce pastry shrinkage).
Bake for 20 minutes.
Use excess paper to CAREFULLY remove hot beads from quiche pan, then return to oven for 15 minutes.
Remove from oven when light golden and proceed with Quiche Lorraine recipe above. The pastry will not be fully cooked but it finishes cooking with the filling. It's cooked enough so the crust will not go soggy.
Notes
If using store bought frozen shortcrust pastry, you will need 2 sheets (standard Australian square sheets). Thaw then line the 2 sheets together so they are overlapping slightly and press down firmly to seal. Then press into the pan and start from step 10.