Pastry-Making
One activity that seniors will surely love doing is learning how to make pastry. For those who love to cook, the experience will definitely encourage them to continue cooking, and for those who have not tried cooking or pastry making before, it will make them realize it’s something that’s worth doing: it’s easy and it’s fun!
Basics of Pastry Making
When making pastry, there are three major areas that need to be considered: 1) ingredients, 2) equipments and materials; and 3) general procedure.
1. Ingredients
Pastry is basically made of ingredients: flour, butter, salt, and water.
Flour – Use only good quality flour. It should be dry. Always sieve flour before measuring to ensure that lumps are removed and air is introduced as this helps lighten the pastry. Different types of flour are used for specific types of pastry. For example, for short crust or suet pastry, the best flour to use is self-raising flour. For richer pastry, always use plain flour.
Fats – Use butter or lard because they enhance the flavor of the pastry. Butter and lard also makes the pastry crisp and rich. If butter or lard is not available, the best substitute is margarine. There are also other hard block vegetable fats and white margarine that can be used as alternatives. However, for best pastry results use butter or lard.
Salt – Salt is essentially to give the pastry flavor. But salt should be used moderately especially if using salted butter.
Water – Use cold and fresh water. For richer pastries, a little lemon juice can be added because it helps make the pastry crisper.
Delicious and Healthy Pastry Puff
2. Equipment and Materials
For best looking pastry, metal plates or baking tins are ideal as they ensure even degree of under browning.
For short crust pastry, use lightly greased or non greased baking sheets.
A flan ring and the baking sheet on which a flan is cooked should be well greased to prevent the pastry sticking.
If making flaky, rough puff, or puff pastry, the utensils used for baking them should not be greased. For best results, it’s better to rinse or sprinkle the utensil with cold water before the pastries are put on it.
3) General Procedure When Making Pastry
rubbing fats into flour
Here are some tips to remember when making pastry.
- Ensure that all the ingredients and utensils are kept cool. The hands should also be cooled down.
- Collect all equipment needed and weigh all the ingredients before starting the pastry.
- When a recipe calls for a certain weight of pastry, this weight refers to the amount of flour used and not to the total amount of pastry. For example, if a recipe says you need 4 oz (112 g) Short Crust Pastry, it means that you start off with 4 oz (112 g) flour and then add all the other ingredients.
- Measure all the ingredients accurately.
- Always remember that the pastry should be handled as little and as lightly as possible.
- Add all the water at once as this will help avoid getting streaks in the pastry.
- Mix evenly to a pliable dough.
- Knead lightly with the fingertips, drawing the edges of dough towards the center, turning the pastry on a lightly floured board.
- Roll out with short strokes using the rolling pin. Roll away from you. Remember to turn the pastry and not the rolling pin.
- Rich pastries are improved if allowed to cool and relax between rolling.
- Pastry freezes well, baked or unbaked, except Hot Water Pastry and Suet Pastry. So it’s okay to freeze pastry if they will be used later.
Pastry-making as an activity can be fun for seniors. It’s an activity that requires patience and accuracy, something that most seniors are great at. It’ll be an interesting experience for those who are going to do it for the first time, and it’ll be a fun teaching opportunity for those who already know how. It’ll be a great time to share cooking talents and know-how.
