Using ground almonds in pastry making

Too dry? Not that my pastry making is anything to write home about.

Can you tell me the recipe please Lemongrove.

Maybe need to reduce the proportion of ground almonds to flour? I assume you're using some flour?

Yes, GrannyLaine that’s what I may try and do.

Kitty I use this recipe...
225 g plain flour
50 g ground almonds
Tiny bit ( pinch) of salt
70 g caster sugar
1 egg yolk

It makes a delicious pastry ( got the recipe from a W.I friend a few years ago) but so hard to get them all out in one piece when making mince pies.

Sorry....left out the butter!
200 g butter.

Try using block margarine like Stork instead of butter which often makes pastry too short.

Leave them to cool in the tin for longer?

Some good ideas, which I will try ( I just typed out a longer reply but it vanished!) So, I will try leaving them to cool for longer first of all, it’s a delicate balance as if I leave them to cool completely they will stick, too warm and they crumble.
Then I will reduce the almonds and lastly use block Stork.
One of these tips is bound to work, thanks all.?

The best pastry I ever tasted was made by a friend who used half butter, half lard.
Probably not good for you but it's not every day we eat mince pies.

Using ground almonds sounds rather good though, I may have to try that.
Perhaps, like gf pastry, it needs just a drop more water.

lemongrove that's a LOT of butter to flour + almonds. I think that might be the problem rather than too much ground almonds. Shortcrust pastry would normally be about half fat to flour so you would be expecting about 140g rather than 200g. And 70g of sugar seems like quite a lot for pastry.

Perhaps, like gf pastry, it needs just a drop more water.

Yes. A tablespoon of cold water can toughen up shortcrust pastry and a tablespoon of sugar should suffice.

Half fat to flour is the correct ratio.

Perhaps adding xanthan gum would help. It is used in GF cooking to stop crumbliness in the absence of gluten. Measurements given on tub. It is sold in supermarkets with GF baking powder etc.

Callistemon

The best pastry I ever tasted was made by a friend who used half butter, half lard.
Probably not good for you but it's not every day we eat mince pies.

Using ground almonds sounds rather good though, I may have to try that.
Perhaps, like gf pastry, it needs just a drop more water.

Mum, a good Cornish woman always made her pastry half butter and half lard. Delicious pasties!,

Thank you Lemon. The almonds are quite fatty so maybe reduce the rest of the fat.

Well wouldn't you know, I've woken up thinking about almond pastry and mince pies, so I think I'm going to have to experiment in the name of research ahead of Christmas. My chief taster is going to be very very pleased. May add just a little almond essence too but I always use a mix of butter and lard for really short pastry.

Could you put a couple of thin strips of baking paper under each one to lift them out with. A bit fiddly but it may work.

I agree about the amount of butter to dry ingredients in your recipe, lemon. You should find the pastry is much more stable if you reduce the amount of butter. And don’t try and take them out too quickly. They’ll fall apart if they’re too warm.

Lemongrove - that's Katie Stewart's recipe - in olden days she used to be the cookery writer for The Times and that pastry is simply perfect for mince pies.

My hack is to lightly grease the pie tin and then flour it, as you would for a sponge cake. The pies come out a lot easier. This works for all sorts of pie making where you want to get it out of the tin in one piece.

I've also learned not to use too deep a tin greedy guts Mr M one year requested deeper pies and I tried using a muffin tin. The result was carnage. Happy Christmas ?

Am I the only person still working in ounces?! I am aren't I! ?

Found the Katie Stewart version, for any other stick-in-the-muds on here. app.ckbk.com/recipe/kati85568c08s001ss004r014/mince-pies

Moonlight113

Am I the only person still working in ounces?! I am aren't I! ?

Haha, no, join the club! Lots of my favourite recipes at in ounces, far too much trouble to convert.

Why don't you try making normal pastry for the bottoms and use the almond pastry for the tops.I agree the flour to fat ratio is rather high.I always use plain flour for shortcrust pastry although have used S R flour if short.

Our cookery teacher at school used to say, “Lard for shortness, marg for colour”, when pastry making.

I would use butter now, not marg, but half fat to flour for shortcrust.

Ground almonds sounds tasty.

If you don't want to try reducing the fat, it does seem a lot, then you could always freeze them in their tins, would pop out easily when frozen!