Make This Sturdy Pasty Dough Recipe
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Looking for a pasty dough recipe that doesn’t fall apart the moment you bite into it? THIS IS IT. Plus if you’re looking for a NO LARD pasty dough recipe, this is also it!
This Pasty Dough Recipe does it all. It tastes great, stays together, doesn’t crumble in your hand, AND makes 10 hand pies.
And YES you can actually hold this in your hand, take a bite, and not have it fall apart. So if you’re looking to make and bake great savory hand pies use this dough!
This bake reminds me of the Bedfordshire Clangers we made about two years ago for the Great British Baking Show. If you LOVE the GBBO JOIN US!!
I think you can use this dough for sweet hand pies too, but it may be a little too sturdy for the job. Something more like these Jam Hand Pies might just be the thing you’re looking for.
Best of All? No Soggy Bottom!
This dough held it together in every test I gave it. Three different fillings, three different bakes. Crispy bottom on every bake!
Pasties For Pastry Week
Last week on the GBBO (2020 season) It was Pastry Week. The bakes were:
- Signature Bake: Savory Pasties Any flavor, any style, but it must have crimped edges
- Technical Bake:6 Eclairs, 3 Salted Caramel and 3 Raspberry
- Showstopper bake:A Caged Tart–a sweet tart with an edible pastry cage over it
We chose the Savory Pasty for our Bake-Along Challenge because it seemed like a fun one to do. Especially after two weeks of Technical Bakes, the Chocolate Babka, and the Rainbow Bagels. We thought giving the bakers a chance to choose their own adventure might be a nice change-up.
Facts About Pasties
- ONLY pasties MADE IN Cornwall can be a Cornish Pasty everything else is just a Pasty
- They originated as a lunch food for miners so they could have a big filling meal that was completely self contained
- The crimped edge was often made big enough for miners to hold while they ate, and then thrown away because it was dirty from their hands
- They should have 21-22 crimps per pasty!
Easy Filling For Hand Pies
You’ll notice that I don’t give an explicit recipe for a filling that’s because I believe you should make a filling from ingredients you like or have in your home already.
Start by browning a pound of meat, chop and add an onion or leek, add a few peeled potatoes or chopped carrots. Cook all this over medium heat in a frying pan. Drain if needed, you don’t want a bone dry filling but you don’t want it to squirt hot grease all over people either.
You want the meat cooked through and the veggies on the edge of tender. Add any seasonings you like, keep it simple with salt, pepper, and garlic. OR add things like curry powder, or smoked paprika, or any spices you like.
You’re shooting for 6-7 cups of filling, EACH of these pasties will hold about 1/2 or 2/3 of a cup of filling. You may end up with some filling leftover, better to have too much than to scrimp on filling pasties.
If you make bigger or smaller sizes you could end up using more or less.
How to Use this Pasty Dough Recipe for Hand Pies
- Make the Pasty Dough and Chill it
- make about filling, and cool it
- preheat the oven to 445˚
- divide the chilled dough into 10 pieces
- roll each ball into an 7-8 inch circle
- put a heaping 1/2 cup or so of filling in the middle of each circle
- fold one side up and over the filling, seal it shut
- crimp the edges, I’ve embedded a little video of the crimping process
- bake at 445˚ for 20 minutes
- reduce heat to 345˚ bake 15-20 more minutes
Let’s Make Pie!
You all know I don’t like pie right? And yet my family LOVES IT. SO I make pies for them. And you guys of course!
Pasty Dough
Equipment
Ingredients
- 750 grams OR 6 cups of Bread Flour with 1 Tablespoon taken out
- 2 tsp salt
- 235 grams OR 1 cup + 1/2 Tablespoon cold butter
- 245 ml cold water
- 2 egg yolks not used together
- 5-7 cups filling see notes
Instructions
- put the flour and salt in a mixing bowl
- cut the cold butter into tiny pieces and work it into the flour, when it resembles crumbs it's ready for the water–see notes for food processor instructions
- mix the water and one egg yolk together
- pour into the flour and mix until it comes together
- turn it out on a clean counter and knead lightly until it comes together into a dough
- wrap in plastic wrap and chill at least 30 minutes
- when you're ready to bake preheat the oven to 445˚
- line two baking sheets with parchment
- weigh the dough if you have a scale and divide into 10 equal pieces of dough
- roll each piece of dough into a 7-8 inch circle
- add a heaping half cup of filling
- lay the circle over on itself
- press together
- starting at one end press your thumb down on the seam while pulling it out with the other hand into a little point and then fold it over
- repeat all the way around the seam making crimps as you go
- crimping may feel awkward but once you get it it's fairly easy
- place five pastes on each prepare sheet
- make an egg wash with the remaining egg yolk and mix it with a Tablespoon of water
- brush each pasty with an egg wash
- bake for 20 minutes at 445˚ then reduce the heat to 345˚ and bake for another 15-20 minutes until crispy and browned underneath
- cool a bit before eating
Video
Notes
- You CAN pulse the butter and flour in a food processor to cut the butter in, then add the water and egg and just pulse until a dough forms, THEN pull it out and knead it lightly
- Filling for a pasty can be almost anything, started with ground meat ad brown with whatever veggies you have on hand
- Season with salt, pepper, garlic and anything else that tastes good to you
- often times they have potatoes in them
- you don’t need everything cooked through, just mostly cooked
Nutrition
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What is this 445* Is this Farenhite ? The pasty recipe looks super and I will try it. Please clear up the oven temp for me.
Thanks
Yes of course it is. If it wasn’t it would over 800 degrees
Would all purpose flour be equivalent to ‘bread flour’?
It has less gluten which means it’s not AS STURDY but it works. I test all my recipes with both to make sure they work!
Have you tied freezing these? Would it work best before or after baking. Thanks!
I have not! Let me know if you do.
I have made other pastys before and freeze them before baking and its great! Just take them out an hour or so before you want to bake them and then do the egg wash and bake
Either way Erin. I myself, freeze them with aluminum foil then paper lunch bags fully baked. when ready to reheat, open up foil, place on oven rack, do not pre-heat oven. just set temp. at 350 degrees F. and bake for 1hr. from solid frozen to perfectly done, like the day they were made fresh from scratch. Some even 1/2 bake them then freeze them.
Laura, this pasty dough is the best I’ve ever used. It holds up beautifully, as promised!
Well, I’ll be damned! I’m a sturdy girl who likes a sturdy pie and this was everything I hoped for. Although I got tired of rolling out dough before we’d finished with the sausage filling (an attention span problem – no issue with the dough), it would have absolutely held the much wetter chicken curry without an issue. Thank you!
My grandmother was from Cornwall and would make pasties. My mother has tried to duplicate them using her recipe but the dough never comes out right. I’ve tried as well even resorting to pizza dough. But we both haven’t been able to get the right crust. Adding the egg yoke makes this dough perfect. I’m wondering if my grandmother forgot to add it to the recipe she left us.