Basic Sweet Pastry

Fantastic easy to make pastry recepie. Very soft so lots of flour needed when rolling. Makes fantastic crisp tart cases with a great buttery sweet flavour.

Easy-peasy to make, and tastes delicious! I blitzed the flour, butter and sugar to crumbs in the food processor, then added a large egg and blitzed it again until it made a dough. It was a bit soft (maybe because my butter was very soft or maybe because the egg was very large, I don't know), so I chilled it for half an hour. It was hard to roll out the entire dough for a large tart dish (it kept falling apart), but I think it would be easier to roll out small quantities for individual tarts. In the end I used the 'Martha Stewart' technique of just dumping the dough in the dish and pressing it out into the shape! Baked blind at 175°c for about 25 minutes (until it was golden), it hardly shrank at all. I have saved this recipe and will definitely be using it again. Thanks scott3110 ;)

I'm useless at making pastry but this was so easy, the only problem I had was that it crumbled when I was rolling it out; has anyone got some tips for me so this don't happen again please. Thanks in advance.

Amazing sweet pastry. I've used it for mince pies and Cherry Bakewells.

Amazing recipe - I would rather cook a dinner for 30 than to make pastry....... But today that's all changed! Found this recipe and used it for the base of cherry bakewell slices. It was so easy to make and has turned out to be absolutely delicious. I read the comments before I started and decided to use the largest egg out of the dozen I had, to save having to add any extra fluid. I weighed the eggs and used one which was 69g and that was just right I didn't need any extra milk/water. Chilled it then rolled it out - baked it blind and it's a real success. I'm chuffed!

Excellent pastry, made it in the blender, didn't have to add any milk as others mention? Made a tasty and crunchy pastry for mince pies. Refrigerated it for 20 minutes before using. Gave it a little bit of a knead before rolling out. Baked mince pies at 200 degrees (fan) for exactly 10 minutes. Gorgeous! Will use again and again from now on!

Used this to make a mixed berry and pear lattice pie. I did not add any milk but still found it too sloppy to roll out so had to knead in a bit more flour but it still cooked nicely with an egg glaze at 170 C for 30 mins under foil and a further 20 mins bare. Came out firm but not crispy or dry. Perfect!

Anyone who knows anything about pastry will know that usually cold water is used when mixing and not milk. This makes the pastry heavy and gives a very unpalatable finish. When using egg nothing else is required for mixing - with patience the required consistency will eventually be achieved. I know some experienced cooks use milk and water mix, but the results are different and for shortcrust pastry the difference can be disast rous.