Those recipes for hot water pastry omit eggs. It won't work well for pies of parys without eggs. When you get to the crumbly stage, add whole eggs. I use 3 eggs to the pastry mix, which for me is 7 cups flour/250g dripping/200mL water, makes around 48 muffin sized pies. You could just add more hot water, but if the pastry is crumbly it is just too dry. Letting it stand won't help, in fact will mkae it worse, because you need to work the pastry when it's hot (it is less malleable when cold).
For blind baking I use barley, not rice, it doesn't absorb the water from the pastry as quickly. I don't bother with blind baking the small pies, only the very large ones.
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Date: 2006-11-26 12:27 pm (UTC)For blind baking I use barley, not rice, it doesn't absorb the water from the pastry as quickly. I don't bother with blind baking the small pies, only the very large ones.