From the one star french chef Patrick Asfaux
4.8 5 (59 votes)
20 minutes0 minutes20 minutes
Here is the recipe of the 'shortcrust pastry' ('pâte sablée' in French), sometimes forgotten from the pastry cook books but however, the best one, for me, for making tarts.
Shortcrust pastry for a tart for 6 to 8 persons :
250 grams (1/2 lb) wheat flour
125 grams (1/4 lb) caster sugar
1 small bag of vanilla sugar
125 grams (1/4 lb) soft butter (margarine texture)
1 egg
1 pinch of table salt
Progression
1/Put both sugars, salt and the egg into a salad bowl and beat it for 30 seconds.
2/ Add the flour at once and quickly blend, then pass the flaky bits between your fingers to make the dough sandy and keep aside each part of the sandy pastry until you have used all of it. Put the lot onto the working top in round with a well in the middle.
3/Put the soft butter into the well and incorporate it into the dough with your hand to knead it ; make a compact ball with the dough and keep it into a bowl covered with a damp cloth in the fridge for 1 hour and a half approximately.
The pastry is now ready to be used (stop eating it : it is not cooked yet !...)
credits photo : ©Georges Tumay - A.F.Touch
