Ridiculously Easy Pastry Dough

Laurel Watson

This is one of the strangest recipes I’ve ever come across in my travels through the internet… it intrigued me immediately.. a French woman posted it (always a good start) and claimed it made a lovely short, sweet crust for a filled tart.. but when I read the recipe it went against all conventional pastry wisdom…so I had to try it…and the results…Fantastic!

So I am spreading the love, if you have ever had fear issues with pastry, give this a whirl, stress will be a thing of the past.

Ridiculously Easy Pastry Dough

90 g unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

3 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

150 g (1 slightly-rounded cup) flour

Preheat the oven to  210 C

In a medium-sized ovenproof bowl, such as a Pyrex bowl, combine the butter, oil, water, sugar, and salt.

Place the bowl in the oven for 15 minutes, until the butter is bubbling and starts to brown just around the edges.

When done, remove the bowl from oven (and be careful, since the bowl will be hot and the mixture might sputter a bit), dump in the flour and stir it in quickly, until it comes together and forms a ball which pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Transfer the dough to a 23 cm tart tin with a removable bottom and spread it a bit with a spatula.

Once the dough is cool enough to handle, pat it into the shell with the heel of your hand, and use your fingers to press it up the sides of the tart. Reserve a small piece of dough for patching any cracks

Prick the dough all over with the tines of a fork, then bake the tart shell in the oven for 15 minutes, or until the dough is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and if there are any sizable cracks, use the bits of reserved dough to fill in and patch them.

Let the shell cool before filling.

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