I love cooking with pastry. It’s another one of my comfort food vices. And, it’s fun! Some of my favourite memories in the kitchen involve getting my hands in the bowl and playing with the dough. For kids, it’s really a bit like playing with playdoh when you think about it – only, this one’s actually safe to eat. (Because really, who didn’t try eating a chunk of playdoh when they were a kid?)
Just about every day after school I would rush over to my grandma’s house (thankfully it was a small town, so she lived close by) where 9 times out of 10 she had some kind of baking going on. Grandma Eva always had a sweet tooth – typical Taurus. Her house was filled with tins of cakes and biscuits. We’d sit at her kitchen table and have a cup of tea, and I would tell her all about my day at school while she finished off whatever she had been baking that day. One day I remember her making little jam tarts. I had arrived just in time to see her rolling out the pastry, so she let me roll some out dough and have fun with the pastry cut-outs. Then we ate them fresh out of the oven, washed down with cups of tea from little china cups. Yes I know, very British!
Today, whenever I’m preparing some pastry for a recipe that I’m making, I’ll roll out the left-over bits and bake them in the oven, ready to be served with a bit of jam and, of course, some tea.
Gluten-Free Shortcrust Pastry
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup brown rice flour
- 1/3 cup soy flour* (*or split pea or chickpea flour)
- 1/3 cup quinoa flour (or buckwheat flour)
- pinch salt
- 50 grams dairy-free margarine
- 1/4-1/3 cup cold water (approximately)
Instructions
- Sieve all three flours into a large bowl. Add a large pinch of salt and mix together thoroughly.
- Add in the margarine and, using your fingers, rub the margarine into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
- Slowly, add just enough cold water until all mixture comes together into a firm dough.
- TIP: If you overdo it on the water and the dough turns out a little too sticky, then add a little bit more brown rice flour until you have firm dough on your hands.