Home made pastry?!
Answers: Has anyone got a recipe for pastry made with canola oil. I was just given a bunch of apples and thought I'd make some free form pies or tarts. And I don't have any shortening but have lots of oil. Is there any trick I need to know making this kind of pastry.
I found this link on Google.
http://canolaharvest.com/usa/cuisine/bak...
I've never tried it myself, but it looks interesting.
The trick to pastry is to have cold butter, not shortening, not oil. When the butter melts, it creates the layers to make the pastry flaky. The butter has to stay cold during the making of pie crust, croissant dough, danish dough, and puff pastry or you wont get the flaky results. Since oil is already liquid, and has no water in it, it wont melt, and no water can evaporate from it which creates steam which helps in forming the layers. Your best bet is get butter. Hope this helps.
I actually prefer a pastry made with a combination of shortening and butter. An all butter crust can be very good but can also be more difficult to work. I've been following a Julia Child recipe that uses shortening to butter in a 1/3 - 2/3 ratio. The shortening makes the crust flaky while the butter gives it the flavor.
You can use canola oil for the crust but it will not be as good as a short crust or short/butter crust