Basic shortcrust pastry

There is so much butter in this recipe. When I took it out of the oven after blind baking it, there was no pastry at the bottom and instead was a puddle of melted butter. Either increase the amount of flour in the recipe or decrease the amount of butter. I used it in a bakewell tart. The filling saved it but it nearly fell apart. Had to serve it upside down without icing because the pastry was too weak to hold it together. Don't recommend. Just get a different recipe

Very pleased with this recipe, turned out great and easily workable. Great to have a basic recipe. Note: I used half fat to flour as by the time I’d accounted for the flour used in rolling etc it made up the additional 25g.

This is a standard recipe. If you find the pastry too short (crumbly) use cold milk instead of water. I also find it works better if I chill the flour (in the bowl) after adding the butter.

This is the worst pastry recipe ever. I tried twice as it didn’t work out for the first time and it was awful. Please do not attempt. It’s an utter waste of time and ingredients! I am so disappointed.

Somebody mentioned using a mixer instead of your hands...good idea. This requirement for using fingers to mix the butter and flour is not essential but is quoted over and over again in recipes. I hardly think the commercial pastry sheets are made with fingers but work perfectly well. They seldom contain butter either. It may be what puts people off making their own pastry and pie crust as it is so time consuming and messy. My breadmaking machine heats very gently while in pizza dough mode, which takes only 40 minutes. A dough mixer would work just as well if the butter is slightly softened. You could even use extra virgin olive oil instead of butter. You can add a little water when the butter is blended and crumbly or maybe at the start but I haven't tried that. While it's doing that you can do other things.

Very Simple. Great results. I chilled my pastry for a couple of hours which was a mistake as it was rock hard when I got it out of the fridge. Had to wait a little while until I could roll it. Will definitely make this again.

I’m 60 years old and I just made my very first short crust pastry using this recipe. Omg. It looks amazing and so smooth and thin. Love it. I will NEVER buy store bought pie crust again. No comparison. Thank you so much for such a simple and delicious recipe. I’m a believer. I followed the recipe exactly and it’s perfect. Wouldn’t change a thing.