Gluten free shortcrust pastry is so much easier to work with than when using flour with gluten as you don’t have to worry about over working it. That said, making rich shortcrust is a bit fiddly, due to the high fat content you need to keep it well chilled. The idea is to keep the dough crumbly. Depending on the flour you are using, you may need to vary the water to get the correct texture. For a savoury dough leave out the sugar.
Ingredients
225g gluten free flour
1 tsp xanthan gum
pinch of salt
25g castor sugar (leave out for savoury dough)
110g butter, chilled & cubed
1 egg + 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
1 tbsp cold water
Instructions
Sift together the flour, xanthan gum, salt and sugar. Make sure they’re well combined and put in a food processor. Add the butter and blitz till pea sized crumbles form. The less handson option will produce the same results as rubbing with your fingers and in the Queensland summer it will keep the butter colder.
Transfer the crumble to a bowl and put in the fridge for 10 mins to chill.
Lightly beat the whole egg, yolk and water together in a small bowl.
At this point add any other flavourings like lemon or lime zest if your pie or tart recipe calls for it.
Make a well in the dry mixture and add about 2/3 of the wet mixture to it.
Use a fork, and mix the dry into the wet, gradually pulling more into the centre well as you go. Just before you form it into a ball, add more of the wet mixture if you think the resulting pastry is too dry. You want it to be nice and soft, able to form a ball but not too sticky.
Wrap the ball in cling wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 min.
At this point refer to your recipe as to what you require with the dough or continue to make the casings.
Roll out the pastry to the desired thickness between 2 sheets of wrap.
Cut to the desired shape and place it into your tin.
Press the pastry into your tin, being careful not to break it. If you do it’s ok, just patch up with extra pastry. Make sure you get into all the groves of the tin.
Trim the excess with the back of a knife and allow to chill in the fridge.
While it’s resting, preheat the oven to 200°C.
Place a sheet of grease proof paper into the tart and fill with dry beans, rice or baking ceramic balls.
Bake for 10 min, then remove the paper and beans and bake for about 5 min more. The colour you’re looking for is a nice light golden brown.
Cool in the tins before removing them.
