COMMON FAULTS & REMEDIES

of SHORT CRUST PASTRY

Chef Raj
Pastry is hard and tough.

• - Ingredients were too warm

• - Over- kneading and heavy handling
• - Incorrect proportion of ingredient
• - Oven temperature too cool
Pastry is blistered.

• - Uneven addition of water

• - Oven set at too high a temperature
• - Fats insufficiently and unevenly rubbed in to the flour.
Pastry is fragile and crumbly when cooked

• - Too much fat

• - Over- rubbing the fat into the flour
• - Too little water
Pastry is soggy in a pie

• - Steam not allowed to escape during cooking.

Crust loses shape:
• When going into the oven, the crust wasn't cold enough, and the
oven wasn't hot enough.

The crust's rollout wasn't even.

Crust shrinks:
• Gluten has developed making the dough elastic, usually because of
over mixing but sometimes because of excessive rolling. If there is too
little shortening, or if the ingredients are too warm or if there is too
much water, shrinking will also occur. Chilling the dough after rolling it
out, but before baking, will help to prevent shrinking. Roll the pastry
to an even thickness and don't stretch pastry when transferring it to
pie pan. Not pricked with fork prior to baking.
Edges fell over while baking:
• Usually the crust is too thick and falls over because of its own weight.
However, too high a proportion of fat in the recipe, under mixing, or
placing warm dough in the over to bake before it has been chilled will
also contribute to this problem.
Crust tough:
• Sometimes there is not enough fat in the recipe which allows too
much gluten to develop. Overworking the dough also makes it tough.
When a crust is served cold it will often be tough because the fat is
chilled, making the crust hard.
Pastry is crumbly and hard to roll:
• Measure your ingredients carefully. Too much shortening makes the
pastry crumbly. Add more water, 1 teaspoon at a time.
 Soggy bottom crust:
• Could be one of several things. Check out your pie pan. Glass, dark metal
and dull-metal pans absorb heat and produce a crisp, golden-brown crust.
Filling leakage could also cause a soggy crust. Unthicken filling not
precooked. Patch any cracks with a pastry scrap and with a little water so it
stays in place. Also make sure your oven temperature is accurate. If the
temperature is too low the crust won't brown properly. After baking, cool
your pie on a wire rack. Allowing the air to circulate under the pie prevents
the crust from becoming soggy. You could have used too much lard,
shortening, or butter in the recipe. Ingredients were not cold enough during
preparation. You could have overworked the crust.. The fillings could have
been a bit too runny.
Pie crust burns around the edges:
• To prevent overbrowning of the fluted edge of your pie, make a shield
by cutting a strip of aluminum foil 2 inches wide and 3 inches longer
than the diameter of your pie pan. When the crust begins to brown,
place the foil over the pie, gently curving the foil to cover the fluted
edge.
Tough pastry:
• Use a pastry blender to cut in the shortening until well mixed and the
mixture resembles small peas. It's the tiny pockets of fat encased in
flour that make a pie crust crisp. Use less flour when rolling out the
pastry since too much flour and too much water makes pastry tough.