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How To Roll Pastry

I’m back with another kitchen hack. This time I wanted to share my little trick for rolling pastry or biscuit dough without getting flour all over kitchen. Before I had worked out this hack, I used to avoid making pastry because of the mess. Flour would always manage to be spread all over the kitchen and, quite frankly, it would drive me crazy. These days, pastry is something that I find easy to make (thanks to my food processor), and easy to roll. Best of all it takes very little time.

How To Roll Pastry

So here is my hack; instead of sprinkling flour all over the bench, place your pastry disk onto a sheet of baking paper. If you need to roll a large round of pastry, use two pieces overlapped slightly. Place another sheet (or two) of baking paper on top of the pastry. Use your rolling pin to begin rolling the pastry. After each brief roll, turn the paper and pastry ninety degrees (quarter of a circle) and continue rolling. This will help the pastry to remain evenly round and of an even thickness. Continue rolling in this way until your pastry is the desired thickness. Peel the top sheet(s) of paper off the pastry. Carefully roll the pastry onto the rolling pin, and then unroll it on to pie plate with the remaining paper facing up. Ease the pastry into the pie plate, and peel off the baking paper.

Sound confusing?? It’s actually pretty simple. Here is a video I made to explain the process more easily.

A few tips to help you along.

  • To get pastry that is lovely and short (crumbly) when you bake it, use a food processor to mix it up. I would never, ever bother making pastry by hand now that we have a food processor.
  • Make sure your pastry or biscuit dough is moist, or ever so slightly sticky. Dry pastry falls apart so easily, and is very hard to handle. If you make your pastry in the food processor, it won’t go tough when you add moisture.
  • Make sure you rest your dough well in the fridge before rolling. I tend to let it rest for 30 minutes in the fridge and then pull it out for 5 minutes before I roll it. Cold dough is a lot harder to roll than just slightly cool dough.
  • How moist your dough is will depend on the weather. If the humidity is high, it will be stickier, and may need a little more flour. If it is very cool or dry, you may need to add a little more moisture – use a teaspoon of water at a time.
  • If you find your baking paper bunches up during rolling, peel it off the pastry, place it back on the top nice and flat, and continue rolling.
  • Once I have the pastry in the pie plate, I use my fingers to manipulate and press the pastry right into the corner of the plate before I cut the extra pastry off.
  • Once you’ve rolled and cut your pastry in the pie plate, leave it to sit for 15 minutes before baking. This will allow the pastry to relax and reduce the likelihood of the pastry shrinking in the oven.

Here is the sweet shortcrust pastry recipe that we always use:

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry
 
Print
Prep time
5 mins
Cook time
6 mins
Total time
11 mins
 
Author: Jo @ Country Life Experiment
Ingredients
  • 1¾ c plain flour
  • ½c caster sugar
  • pinch salt
  • 125g butter
  • 1 egg + 1 egg yolk
Method
  1. Place the flour, sugar, salt, and butter in a food processor and process until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.
  2. Add in the egg and egg yolk and process again until the mixture comes together to form a dough.
  3. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  4. Roll and cut to the desired size and shape.
  5. Bake at 200*c
Notes
How moist your pastry is will depend on the size of your eggs. Adjust by adding a little more flour or a teaspoon of water as needed
3.5.3208

I use this method for my passionfruit curd tartlets, my chocolate sour cherry tart, and my stonefruit galette, as well as for biscuits, and even pizza dough.

Got any other pastry tricks to share? Want to know another kitchen hack?

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Comments

  1. Brianna says

    August 15, 2016 at 10:00 am

    This is great! Thank you. I love to make everything from scratch, and now that I have little ones (1&3 year old) anything that helps along in the kitchen is much appreciated. 🙂 Definitely saving for Thanksgiving!

    Reply
  2. jan2132 says

    August 15, 2016 at 8:53 am

    My youngest son used to say that my meat pies were 9/10. His grandmother’s on the other hand were 12/10. Why? Her meat simmered for hours on the side of the fuel stove which they had in addition to gas. The main reason was that she always made her own pastry.

    Reply

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Hi, I’m Jo

I'm a city girl turned farmer's wife, school teacher, ideas woman, and mum to three country kids. Country Life Experiment is all about simple country living, growing and making our own food, and life on our family farm in rural Australia. Join me as I give country living a try. Read more...
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A lovely, easy Christmas with family, good food, a A lovely, easy Christmas with family, good food, a few presents, an afternoon swim and dinner on the veranda as the sun set. Time to stop and be thankful for the many blessings of the year. I hope you had a lovely Christmas too!
We have been mulling over how to fix up the drivew We have been mulling over how to fix up the driveway and lead up to our house for a while. Currently it’s just a dumping ground for old bits of metal and a big pile of mulch, but C would like to create a turning area and put in a garden. First up though, there’s a huge old stump that needs to go. What better excuse is there to have a fire on Sunday afternoon? C and the kids jumped on the quad bike and trailer, and hauled back a big pile of sticks and logs to help the stump burn. Once the fire was going, marshmallows were found and roasted. No better way to spend time together.
Team work makes the dream work. We were asked rec Team work makes the dream work. 
We were asked recently whether we “make” our kids work on the farm. The answer is of course not. Having said that, all three love to help out whenever they can. They all work hard because they want to; because they take pride in working hard and contributing in a meaningful way to our family life; because they love living on our farm and don’t remember life before we moved here. Whether it be planting trees or doing sheep work or feeding animals, they all want to be involved. As a parent, nothing is better than watching them grow in skill and confidence as they work along side you. We’re so glad that we get to spend time with our three, working together.
We’ve had an unexpected addition to the family ☘️🐑. She is a lot easier to look after than the other family members but she does try to escape her yard and head butt people. Poddy lambs are super cute but they tend to think they are a human. Clover the lamb is sure that Meg is her mum. Can’t think why… 🤔🤣
The perfect way to end a long winter weekend: toge The perfect way to end a long winter weekend: together, cooking damper around the remains of the bonfire.
It’s been a tough few weeks on the farm. We got It’s been a tough few weeks on the farm. We got through shearing without a hitch (thankfully 🙏) but we’ve had a run of the flu followed by Covid run through the family since then. The kids and I have tested positive (this is my second time getting it 🦠) though so far C has managed to avoid it. There has been a lot of lying on the couch feeling pretty ordinary. Han had to reschedule her driving test for a 4th time due to Covid, which is disappointing for her because she wants her freedom and for us because it would be so much more convenient if she could drive herself places. Just to add in to the mix, our hot water system has chosen now as a good time to die so we’re on cold showers until we’re all out of iso. This is not meant to be a whinging post but sometimes life just sucks a bit and it’s good to be real. Fortunately, the sight of the fire going with a stack of wood next to it cheers us up. Things will improve soon. Onwards we go…

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Hi, I’m Jo

City girl turned farmer's wife, school teacher, ideas woman, and mum to three country kids. Country Life Experiment is all about simple country living, growing and making our own food, and life on our family farm in rural Australia. Join me as I give country living a try. Read more...
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