Sunday 28 June 2015

Gluten Free Sweet Shortcrust Pastry

I love to make Stephanie Alexander's Lemon Tart from her Cook's Companion (I have the first edition).

Unfortunately I can't use her pastry recipes because I can't eat wheat, and for a few years I used to make it with Rowie's Sweet Shortcrust Pastry Mix. Even more unfortunately, that product no longer exists. I've made the tart again with a few gluten-free pastry recipes, but always wanted to try again with something like Rowie's recipe, which was much like a shortbread biscuit.

I tried one at New Year using a shortbread recipe containing gluten free flour (I used Bob's Red Mill), but the garbanzo bean flour taste was a little strong. So today I am trying using a different recipe.

I initially tried using this recipe verbatim, but when I poured the milk in, I got a gloopy mess. Maybe it's because I wasn't using a thermomix, but in any case I threw that lot out and tried again.

This time I poured the milk in a little at a time, and used slightly less than half the amount suggested... and we have shortbread. Tomorrow I will find out how well it goes with the Lemon Tart filling. I made double to ensure that I had enough pastry, and my other half was able to make little biscuits with the remainder. She put finely chopped rosemary in a few of them (maybe after 12 years we have some kind of strange osmotic thought process, because in my hunt for recipes I found a piece on the history and flavourings of shortbread, which I said nothing about and I know she didn't see...) They were indeed tasty!

I think approx 1.5 times the original recipe would do for the pastry for a 22cm tart, so I think it should look something like this:

Ingredients:
150 g raw sugar
330 g rice flour (I try to use the course kind in order to get a slightly crunchy texture)
180 g arrowroot or tapioca starch
1.5 tbsp gluten free baking powder
1.5 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter)
135 g butter, chilled and roughly chopped
190 ml milk (likely to use somewhat less)

Method:
Pulse raw sugar in food processor for a few seconds.
Add the remaining dry ingredients and pulse until combined.
Add the butter and pulse until dry sand texture is achieved.
Add the milk very gradually until you get dough. I used a very dry dough which I sprinkled in to the springform tin in crumb form, and then pressed in.

I then baked the tart shell blind at 150 degrees, and my other half handily repressed it with a spoon so it wasn't so floofy.

My partner was tired, I was tired and methotrexated... the kitchen was a disaster when we'd finished. Hopefully the outcome will stay together and be palatable!