Honestly, savoury shortcrust is the best place to start on your pastry journey. It's easily whipped up from store cupboard ingredients, it's really forgiving and even if it's not perfect the first time, it's ALWAYS better than bought (and there's nothing better to make you feel all 'domestic goddessy!)

INGREDIENTS

250g plain flour (chilled if you can)
125g butter (very well chilled)
1 egg, straight from the fridge

METHOD

Process flour, butter and a pinch of salt in a food processor just until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Whisk the chilled egg and 1 tbsp chilled water together then add it to the flour/butter mixture. Process by pulsing the machine in short bursts until the pastry just starts to come together. Be careful here - don't be tempted to just push go on the machine and let the pastry come together to the stage that your ball of dough is whizzing around the bowl in one piece on top of the blade. Stop processing before the pastry clumps together as this will overwork the flour (gluten) and make your pastry more like to shrink and will toughen it.

Turn the pastry 'crumbles' out onto your bench (add a little flour if you think it's a bit sticky but try to add the mimimum you can as the more flour you add at this stage, the more you risk a tough, dry finished product) and gently pat/push the pastry together into a homogenous ball. Again, handle the pastry as little as possible to prevent heating and overworking.

At this stage, I really like a technique I have learned recently where I omit the 30 minute chill usually suggested at this stage, instead rolling out the pastry immediately and going ahead and lining my tin. Only then do I refrigerate it for at least an hour to let the pastry 'chill' and relax (which helps stop shrinkage upon baking).

Once chilled, line the pastry with baking paper and fill with baking beads before blind baking for 15 mins at 180C, them remove the paper/beads and bake for a further 5 mins to dry the pastry out a little further.

Your pastry shell is then ready to fill and bake.

For more of our tips and tricks to getting off to a great start on your pastry journey, see our Pastry 101.