Hot water crust is a type of
pastry
Pastry is baked food made with a dough of flour, water and shortening (solid fats, including butter or lard) that may be savoury or sweetened. Sweetened pastries are often described as '' bakers' confectionery''. The word "pastries" suggests ma ...
used for
savoury pie
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...
s, such as
pork pie
A pork pie is a traditional English meat pie, usually served either at room temperature or cold (although often served hot in Yorkshire). It consists of a filling of roughly chopped pork and pork fat, surrounded by a layer of jellied pork stock ...
s,
game pie
Game pie is a form of meat pie featuring game. The dish dates from Roman times when the main ingredients were wild birds and animals such as partridge, pheasant, deer, and hare. The pies reached their most elaborate form in Victorian England, wit ...
s and, more rarely,
steak and kidney pie
Steak and kidney pie is a popular British dish. It is a savoury pie filled principally with a mixture of diced beef, diced kidney (which may be beef, lamb, veal or pork) and onion. Its contents are generally similar to those of steak and kidney p ...
s. Hot water crust is traditionally used for producing hand-made pies.
As the name suggests, the pastry is made by heating water, melting the fat in it, bringing the mixture to a boil, and finally incorporating the flour. This can be done by beating the flour into the mixture in the pan, or by kneading on a pastry board. Either way, the result is a hot and rather sticky paste that can be used for hand-raising: shaping by hand, sometimes using a dish or bowl as an inner mould. The molded crust retains its shape as it cools, and is prepared for baking with a filling and additional layer of pastry crust on top. Hand-raised hot water crust pastry does not produce a neat and uniform finish, as there will be sagging during the cooking of the filled pie. This is generally accepted as the mark of a hand-made pie. It is possible, however, to bake the pastry in a mould, as with other pies.
The pastry is often used to make pork pies, and the pastry allows a wet filling to be held in.
See also
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List of pastries
This is a list of pastries, which are small buns made using a stiff dough enriched with fat. Some dishes, such as pies, are made of a pastry casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savory ingredients.
There are fi ...
*
Huff paste
Huff paste is a cooking technique involving making a stiff pie shell (or ''coffyn'') using a mixture of flour, suet, and boiling water. The pastry when cooked creates a tough protective layer around the food inside. When cooked, the pastry is gen ...
References
External links
Recipes for the pastry on Allrecipes.com
British cuisine
Pies
Pastries
Doughs
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