Wholemeal pastry ???

[suffolk]

I’ve never been very successful with wholemeal pastry ... it’s either too short or has the texture of shoe leather.

I fancied using wholemeal pastry for pasties today so am trying out this recipe for the pastry ... currently it’s resting in the fridge http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/3562/who ... sties.aspx

Do you have a recipe for wholemeal pastry that you’re happy with?

[StokeySue]

Haven’t made any in a long time

I have often found oil more successful than hard fat, but Cranks use all wholemeal flour, rub in butter in the usual way, but add 2 tsp of baking powder per 200g flour, which I think is what prevents the shoe leather effect. Even in the original restaurant theirs had a tendency to crumble though.

The ever reliable Rose Elliott uses 8oz wholewheat flour 2tsp baking powder, salt, 2 oz white pastry fat and 2 oz margarine plus iced water. Made the conventional way
I’m pretty sure that’s what I used mostly except that the fat would vary according to what I had. I don’t think I rested it before rolling.

[earthmaiden]

Agree with Sue - those were the people we followed in our Wholefood days. I never used baking powder but did use oil sometimes or mix of white vegetable fat and butter. Nowadays I wouldn't use all wholemeal flour but would add a quarter or third white. It keeps it 'rustic' but not quite so heavy going. (memories of a 3 course dinner party at a keen wholefood person's house circa 1978 where the food was beautifully executed but each course involved pastry. By the time we were presented with a large slice of mincemeat and apple pie we were ready to burst!).

Bet your pasties will be lovely!

[suffolk]

I used to use the Cranks’ recipe but was never happy with it ... but to be fair, I wasn’t brilliant at pastry back then; I’m better now ... perhaps I’ll give the Cranks recipe another go next time ... but we’ll see how today’s effort turns out ... half and half wholewheat and plain, and oil.

The pasties’ filling is leftover roast chicken, peas, chives, spring onions and creme fraiche ... not done that before either so we’ll see how that turns out too.

[scullion]

i just use a half fat to flour mix ( whether it's all butter or half butter and half solid veg fat) mix that in the food processor, pour in some cold water and mix to a softish dough. i don't usually let it rest (i get that this may be wrong but it seems to work for me).
for pastys i mix the 'half' butter into the plain flour (in the food processor) with a pinch of salt, cube the solid veg oil 'half' into centimetre-ish cubes and wizz it with the other ingredients but not so it's fully 'breadcrumbed' - so that it's half way between a rough-puff and shortcrust. (mind you i usually make them with white flour).

with wholemeal i sort of cheat a bit. i sieve out most of the bran before making up the pastry then use the bran instead of flour to roll the made pastry out on. again it's quite a soft dough - unrested and minimum handling.

[Rainbow]

Like Sue, I used to make wholemeal pastry a long time ago! (Now I just buy ready-made pastry )
I always found it to be crumbly, but with some white flour in the mix it was usually better, and as EM said, not so heavy!

[suffolk]

Hmmm ... yesterday’s attempt was okay-ish, but not great ... a bit ‘hard’. Won’t use that recipe again ... next time I may well try Scully’s method of making it a bit rough-puff-ish.

Thanks folks ... I see that this will be an ongoing quest for a little while at least ...