It’s essential the butter isn’t too warm, it will leak liquid oil into the dough creating a sticky, greasy pastry (hence the tales of pastry chefs working on marble worktops in freezing ro… See more

The less liquid your pastry has, the more tender and crumbly it will be, but trickier to roll out. Egg white is mostly water, so the size of egg (or whether you use yolks or whole eggs… See more

Resting the pastry by chilling it in the fridge relaxes any of our much-discussed gluten so the crust won’t shrink as much. Chilling allows the fat to resolidify, making the pastry easi… See more

Blind baking is a trusted technique to avoid the much maligned and now well-publicised ‘soggy bottom’, it means the pastry is cooked before you add any filling. I would blind bake … See more