Richard Bertinent recipe for mulit-purpose Sweet Pastry aka Part 1 of the wee Lemon Tartlet saga

Zok's tips

All ingredients should be measure out, set out, and ready to go before you start 

This is for 720 g. of pastry dough

(Zok says better to make too much, then to not have enough.)

This is again from the marvelous Richard Bertinent books, Zok still watches the accompanying video when he is learning a new technique.

He took this recipe from Richard Bertinets' book 'Pastry'  What I wrote below is dictated by Zok, but the Pastry book has lovely, step by step, illustrations

Bertinet Kitchen 

350 g flour

125 g butter (unsalted, real butter)

125 g sugar (caster or fine)

2 eggs plus one yolk (you can use the extra white as your egg wash so set that aside)

pinch of salt

Take your butter between 2 parchment papers (baking paper) and pound it with your rolling pin into a pancake shape and thickness

Mix all your dry ingredients in a large bowl

Add the flattened butter into the bowl, and coat it with flour

Using both hands, with a tearing motion, mix the butter into the flour until you have small crumbled pieces

Mix in the egg with your hands and Zok uses his bread scraper to clear the edges of the bowl back into the mixture

Now your mixture should be crumbly- (not sticky) 

Now using both hands gather in and fold over and over until it comes together

Take out of bowl

Put onto your work surface (like your marble stone)

So flattening, and pressing and folding a bit more, and now it should feel and look like normal pastry

Finally, flatten into a square shape

wrap into your grease-proof, parchment, baking paper of some sort

Rest in your refrigerator for at least one hour (overnight is better)

Then you are ready to roll it out

Shape into your tins

And do your blind baking (aka pre-bake)