Pate sablee (sweet tart pastry - french) Recipe

My most favourite of the pastry bases crispy, sweet, soft and crumby all at the same time. Hard to work with but a few tricks and it works out fine. This is a french sweet tart pastry and it's delicious!

Here's the recipe I use and a few tips to help get it right

You can either be a real pastry chef and make this on a clean flat surface or if you're a little messy like me, in a big bowl.

INGREDIENTS:
250g flour, sifted
200g butter, cut into small pieces
100g icing sugar, sifted
2 egg yolks
pinch of salt

METHOD:
Combine together the flour, icing sugar and salt. Add butter and rub butter into flour using your fingers until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolks and use a fork to slightly combine into mixture. Using your hands mix and press the mixture together until it resembles a soft smooth round of dough.Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge.

TIPS:

• You can use the pastry straight away; but it is always best to rest pastry in the fridge for at least 30 minutes; this allows the gluten to do its thing and prevents the pastry from shrinking when cooking or acting like elastic when rolling it out.

• Roll the pastry out between two pieces of non-stick baking paper to prevent over use of flour, stickng to the rolling pin/rolling surface and your hands from warming the pastry to much.

• Use drops of water on each corner to get the bottom piece of paper to stick to the work surface and prevent the pastry and paper from shifting around whilst rolling.

• When rolling it out, try not to handle it too much. Also try to work quickly and in a cool place. This is because the pastry has a high butter content so the more the pastry warms the sticker and softer it gets and the harder it is to work with.

• Before you put your pastry into a tart tin. Carefully peel off one of the pieces of paper and place exposed side down into tin. You can use the reamining piece of paper, that is still stuck to the now top of the pastry, to manipulate pastry into shape of tin before peeling off then re-using to hold baking blind material.

• Or, if you don't mind a few creases in the pastry case, you can use one of the pieces of paper as a liner for tin and place the pastry straight into the tin with paper attached underneath.

 Hope that all made sense, if not please let me know.