Sweet shortcrust pastry

This pastry recipe is used for sweet flans and tarts. There is enough to line a 20cm flan ring. In school exams in the 1970s a fluted flan ring was used for sweet dishes and a plain flan ring used for savoury quiches. Now all the rules have gone!

Ingredients

100g sugar

1 large egg

125g butter

250g plain flour

Method

1. Put the sugar, egg, butter and vanilla extract in the food processor and whizz until creamy.
2. Add the flour and mix a little more. Turn the mixture into a bowl and work to a dough.
3. To make a flan, roll out the pastry between two pieces of non stick paper – this saves using extra flour.
4. Line a 20cm/8″ flan tin. Leave in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill. This lets the gluten in the flour relax, so that the pastry is not so tough.
5. Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6/ 180C Fan.
6. To bake blind, line the pastry case with baking paper and baking beans and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the beans and paper and cook for a further 5 minutes to dry out the pastry base. It is now ready for your filling.