Making pastry can be a tricky undertaking at the best of times. Cooks talk about having ‘pastry hands’. Indeed, hot hands, air temperature and even humidity can have a role in success or failure.
At the Coeliac’s Revenge we’re pretty good with pastry and really love making and eating it. So when tasked with producing some excellent gluten-free pastries we were up for the challenge.
Jan, our resident coeliac, isn’t able to compare a classic wheat pastry with a gluten-free one, however, Caren and I don’t have that issue and have been pretty pedantic in ensuring that our pastries are indetectably gluten-free.
In this blog we’re sharing our recipes for three sweet and three savoury pastry recipes as well as our Revenge flour mixes.
To make perfect pastry every time we use our own Revenge flour blends which are quick to whip up and very handy to have on hand. Our pastry recipes have been tested using these flours, although commercial gluten-free flours, and even wheat flour (for our many followers who are not actually gluten-intolerant), may work as well.
We also blind bake our pastry wherever possible before filling (see below). This ensures a well-cooked base and a crisp finish.
Happy baking.
Rosie
SWEET PASTRIES
REVENGE ALMOND SHORTCRUST PASTRY
Makes one 28cm-32cm round flan tin, one 22cm x 32m rectangular flan tin or ten 9cm x 2cm deep individual tart tins and anything in between.
250 gm Revenge Gluten-free Almond Plain Flour Mix
85 gm caster sugar
Pinch salt
½ lemon, zest only (optional)
65 gm unsalted butter, cold, cubed
1 whole egg
1 whole egg, extra, beaten for sealing (optional)
Place dry ingredients and lemon zest, if using, into a food processor and process for a couple of seconds to combine.
Add cold butter cubes and process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Add egg and process until pastry comes together. You may need to add some iced water, but only a teaspoon at a time.
Place the pastry onto a sheet of plastic wrap, flatten into a disc about 1cm thick, wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. The pastry will keep in the fridge for at least 1 week.
Remove pastry from the fridge and knead until smooth and pliable. Roll out between 2 pieces of baking paper to around 3mm thickness, reserving any pastry off-cuts.
Line the tin with pastry and return to the fridge until quite firm. (Pastry can be wrapped and frozen at this stage for up to 2 months.)
Preheat oven to 160°C.
Remove tart base from the fridge and blind bake (see below). A blind baked tart case will stay fresh, if wrapped, for several days before filling.
REVENGE PLAIN SHORTCRUST PASTRY
Makes one 28cm-32cm round flan tin, one 22cm x 32m rectangular flan tin or ten 9cm x 2cm deep individual tart tins and anything in between.
250 gm Revenge Gluten-free Plain Flour Mix
85 gm caster sugar
Pinch salt
½ teaspoon psyllium husks or guar gum
65 gm unsalted butter, cold, cubed
1 whole egg
1 tablespoon iced water
1 whole egg, extra, beaten, for sealing (optional)
Place dry ingredients in a food processor and process for a couple of seconds to combine.
Add cold butter cubes and process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Add egg and process. Add the tablespoon of iced water, a teaspoon at a time, until the pastry comes together. You may need to add more iced water, but only a teaspoon at a time.
Place the pastry onto a sheet of plastic wrap, flatten into a disc about 1cm thick, wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. The pastry will keep in the fridge for at least 1 week.
Remove pastry from the fridge and knead until smooth and pliable. Roll out in between 2 pieces of baking paper to around 3mm thickness, reserving any pastry off-cuts.
Line the tin with pastry and return to the fridge until quite firm. (Pastry can be wrapped and frozen at this stage for up to 2 months.)
Preheat oven to 160°C.
Remove tart base from the fridge and blind bake (see below). A blind baked tart case will stay fresh, if wrapped, for several days before filling.
REVENGE RICH SHORTCRUST PASTRY
Makes one 28cm-32cm round flan tin, one 22cm x 32m rectangular flan tin or ten 9cm x 2cm deep individual tart tins and anything in between.
300 gm Revenge Gluten-free Almond Plain Flour Mix
Pinch salt
55 gm caster sugar
120 gm unsalted butter, cold, cubed
1 large egg, beaten
1 whole egg, extra, beaten, for sealing (optional)
Place dry ingredients into a food processor and process for a couple of seconds to combine.
Add cold butter cubes and process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Add egg and process until pastry comes together. You may need to add some iced water, but only a teaspoon at a time.
Place the pastry onto a sheet of plastic wrap, flatten into a disc about 1cm thick, wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. The pastry will keep in the fridge for at least 1 week.
Remove pastry from the fridge and knead until smooth and pliable.
Roll pastry in between two pieces of baking paper, sprinkling with white rice flour if the pastry sticks to the paper. Line the flan tin with pastry and refrigerate a further 30 minutes or until firm. (Pastry can be wrapped and frozen at this stage for up to 2 months.)
Preheat oven to 160°C.
Remove tart base from the fridge and blind bake (see below). A blind baked tart case will stay fresh, if wrapped, for several days before filling.
REVENGE EGG YOLK SHORTCRUST PASTRY
Makes 1 x 23cm round flan tin with decorative top or 2 x 20cm round flan tins
125 gm unsalted butter, softened
100 gm caster sugar
¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 egg yolks
325 gm Revenge No.2 Gluten-Free Almond Plain Flour Mix
Pinch salt
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the vanilla then the egg yolks one at a time until incorporated. Add the flour and salt and mix until just incorporated.
Turn out onto a floured board and form into a disc. Wrap in plastic wrap and rest in the fridge for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
In between two sheets of baking paper, roll out the pastry to 5mm thickness. Line a 28cm diameter flan tin with pastry and place in the fridge until firm. (The pastry can be wrapped and frozen at this stage and will keep for up to 2 months. It can be blind baked straight from its frozen state.)
Remove tart base from the fridge and blind bake (see below). A blind baked tart case will stay fresh, if wrapped, for several days before filling.
SAVOURY PASTRIES
GLUTEN-FREE CREAM CHEESE PASTRY
This is a deliciously rich, slightly flaky pastry. Perfect as a tart base, cut into shapes as a base for canapés or to enclose a filling, samosa style.
Makes one 28cm-32cm round flan tin, one 22cm x 32cm or two 13cm x 36cm rectangular flan tins and anything in between.
150 gm cold butter, cubed
250 gm cream cheese, cubed
180 gm rice flour )
60 gm tapioca flour ) OR 280 gm Revenge Gluten-free Plain Flour Mix
40 gm potato flour )
4 gm guar gum
1 whole egg, beaten
Place butter and cream cheese in a food processor and pulse to bring together.
When combined, add flours and guar gum, and process. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl when necessary. Process until the pastry comes together.
Turn the pastry onto baking paper and knead for a few minutes, dusting with extra white rice flour if necessary.
Refrigerate for 5 minutes to regain some stiffness then roll the pastry out between two sheets of baking paper to a thickness of 5mm.
Fold the pastry over the rolling pin and transfer to the tin, gently pressing it into the corners. If the pastry breaks just fit the pieces back together and smooth to join. Trim the top of the tin and prepare the second tart base in the same way. Brush the pastry with beaten egg and refrigerate for at least one hour. (Pastry will keep in the fridge for a least a week and can be wrapped and frozen at this stage for up to 2 months).
Preheat oven to 160°C.
Remove tart base from the fridge and blind bake (see below). A blind baked tart case will stay fresh, if wrapped, for several days before filling.
This pastry also makes an excellent base for canapés.
Preheat oven to 160°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
Cut the rolled pastry into desired shapes, brush with beaten egg and transfer to the prepared tray. Chill again for 10 minutes then bake for 20 minutes or until crisp and golden.
GLUTEN-FREE FLAKY PASTRY
Makes approximately 6 x 20cm rounds for pasties or 10-12 x 10cm squares for free form tarts
200 gm unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1cm cubes
275 gm Revenge Gluten-free Almond Plain Flour Mix
1/2 teaspoon salt
90 ml iced water
1 teaspoons lemon juice
Rice flour for dusting
Place butter cubes in the freezer for an hour if using a food processor. Use fridge cold butter for the hand method.
Place flour and salt in a food processor and add the frozen butter. Process until the butter pieces have reduced to the size of large grains of rice.
Add the water and lemon juice and process just until the mixture comes together. Don’t over process, the idea is to have streaks of butter in the dough.
To make this by hand, sift the flour and salt onto a clean surface, tip the cold butter cubes onto the flour and chop through with a metal spatula until roughly incorporated. Make a well in the centre and pour in the water and lemon juice and combine until the mixture forms a dough.
Turn the dough onto a clean surface dusted with rice flour and shape the dough into a rectangle approximately 40cm long and 20cm wide. Add more rice flour if the dough is too sticky. Fold into three as you would a letter. Turn the dough so the open end faces you and roll out again. Fold again into three, wrap in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Remove from the fridge and repeat the rolling, folding process two more times. Rest a further 30 minutes before using.
You can now use the pastry or leave in the fridge for a few days or cut it into usably sized pieces and freeze it.
Cook in a hot oven (180°-200°C) until golden brown.
SAVOURY PASTRY ROUNDS AND TINY TARTLET CASES
These tiny tartlet cases and pastry rounds are very speedy to make. No need to rest or blind bake this very easy to handle pastry. The cooked pastry will keep for a couple of weeks in an airtight container.
Makes around 65 x 4cm rounds or 60 x 5cm rounds as pastry cases
75 gm white rice flour
Extra white rice flour for dusting
75 gm brown rice flour
75 gm besan (chick pea) flour
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon caster sugar
120 ml water
70 ml olive oil
Sea salt flakes for sprinkling on rounds
Preheat oven to 175°C. Line two baking trays with baking paper.
Sift dry ingredients together and combine well. Add oil and warm water and mix with a fork until well combined.
Knead lightly until the mixture comes together adding a little more water if too dry, a little more white rice flour if it is too wet.
Divide dough into two and in two separate batches, in between two sheets of non-stick baking paper, roll out the dough to around 2-3mms thick.
Cut into rounds with a 4cm biscuit cutter for savoury pastry rounds or a 5cm biscuit cutter for mini pastry cases.
If making Savoury Pastry Rounds place the 4cm rounds on to the prepared baking sheets, sprinkle with sea salt flakes and bake for approximately 12 mins until golden brown. Transfer to a rack to cool.
If making Tiny Tartlet Cases, line around 60 mini tartlet or mini muffin tins with the 5cm pastry rounds. No need to blind bake, just bake for 8 minutes, then with two clean fingers, gently flatten any bases which have begun to bubble up. Bake for a further 4 or 5 minutes or until golden.
When cool enough to handle, remove from tins and transfer to a rack to cool.
Allow pastry rounds and tartlet cases to cool completely before storing in an airtight container. Will keep in a cool dark place for more than two weeks.
BLIND BAKING
To blind bake, line a chilled pastry-lined tin with foil, gently pressing well into the corners. Fill with baking weights, pushing them up the sides of the pastry shell. (Raw rice, dried beans or purchased pastry weights all work equally well.) Place in an oven preheated to 160°C and bake for 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven and carefully remove the foil and baking weights. Return the tart shell to the oven for a further 7-10 minutes until golden on the base.
If any splits appear in the pastry, gently fill them with small pieces of the reserved pastry off-cuts, smoothing over the joins, and return to the oven for 5 minutes.
For absolute confidence that a tart shell will not leak, seal the pastry by brushing with beaten egg and return to the oven for a further 5 minutes.
TIP: When working with a sweet pastry, once the pastry case is blind baked, off-cuts can be rolled out to 5mm thick to make biscuits. Unfilled biscuits keep in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks and are delicious sandwiched with a filling such as jam, dulche de leche or ganache.
REVENGE GLUTEN-FREE FLOUR MIXES
Many commercial gluten-free flour mixes are now readily available, but when we began baking gluten-free, this was not the case. We developed our own flours and continue to use them, testing and refining all our recipes with these flour blends.
Substituting commercial flours may work as well, although some variation will occur.
REVENGE GLUTEN-FREE ALMOND PLAIN FLOUR MIX
280 gm almond meal
210 gm besan flour
280 gm fine white rice flour
175 gm corn flour
Mix up a batch and store in the fridge.
REVENGE NO. 2 GLUTEN-FREE ALMOND PLAIN FLOUR MIX
280 gm almond meal
280 gm fine white rice flour
175 gm corn flour
130 gm potato starch (not flour)
80 gm tapioca flour
Mix up a batch and store in the fridge.
REVENGE GLUTEN-FREE PLAIN FLOUR MIX
450 gm fine white rice flour
150 gm fine brown rice flour
160 gm tapioca flour
260 gm potato starch (not flour)
Mix up a batch and store in an air-tight container.
REVENGE GLUTEN-FREE BAKING POWDER
4 tablespoons cream of tartar
2 tablespoons bi-carb soda
2 tablespoons cornflour
Mix up a batch and store in an air-tight container.
For Self-Raising Flour add 2 teaspoons baking powder per 150gm of either of the above plain gluten-free flours.