FANCY PASTRY RECIPES

Steps:

• 1. This pastry is perfect for making apple and other sweet pies. Even if you’ve never made pastry before, as long as you stick to the correct measurements for the ingredients and you follow the method exactly, you’ll be laughing. The one place where you can experiment is with flavouring. If you don’t fancy using lemon zest, try another dry ingredient like orange zest instead. Or a pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg or cocoa powder. Vanilla seeds are great too. Just remember to be subtle and don’t go overboard with any of these flavours!
  2. Try to be confident and bring the pastry together as quickly as you can – don’t knead it too much or the heat from your hands will melt the butter. A good tip is to hold your hands under cold running water beforehand to make them as cold as possible. That way you’ll end up with a delicate, flaky pastry every time.
  3. Sieve the flour from a height on to a clean work surface and sieve the icing sugar over the top. Using your hands, work the cubes of butter into the flour and sugar by rubbing your thumbs against your fingers until you end up with a fine, crumbly mixture. This is the point where you can spike the mixture with interesting flavours, so mix in your lemon zest.
  4. Add the eggs and milk to the mixture and gently work it together till you have a ball of dough. Flour it lightly. Don’t work the pastry too much at this stage or it will become elastic and chewy, not crumbly and short. Flour your work surface and place the dough on top. Pat it into a flat round, flour it lightly, wrap it in clingfilm and put it into the fridge to rest for at least half an hour.

Steps:

• 1. Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F/gas 7.
  2. Place a 30cm non-stick ovenproof frying pan on a high heat, with a smaller non-stick pan on a medium heat alongside. Pour 1 tablespoon of olive oil into the larger pan.
  3. Peel and roughly chop the onions, adding them to the larger pan as you go.
  4. Roughly chop two- thirds of the thighs, finely chop the rest, and add to the onion pan. Cook for 6 minutes, or until golden, stirring occasionally.
  5. Meanwhile, place the mushrooms in the dry pan, tearing up any larger ones. Let them toast and get nutty for 4 minutes, then tip into the chicken pan and strip in half the thyme leaves.
  6. Remove the pan from the heat, add a pinch of sea salt and black pepper, then stir in 1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar and 150ml of water.
  7. Working quickly, roll out the pastry so it’s 2cm bigger than the pan, then place it over the filling, using a wooden spoon to push it into the edges.
  8. Very lightly criss-cross the pastry, then brush with 1 teaspoon of olive oil. Poke the remaining thyme sprigs into the middle of the pie.
  9. Bake at the bottom of the oven for 15 minutes, or until golden and puffed up. Easy!