PASTRY PERFECTION TOM KERRIDGE
Good Food Podcast host and chef Tom Kerridge shares his go-to pastry recipe for a classic British pud
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photograph HANNAH TAYLOR-EDDINGTON
hen it comes to pastry – and what chefs call the ‘pastry section’, or the baking side of the kitchen – you have to work in an extremely structured way, with little room for error. Don’t get me wrong: we have recipes for everything that we make in my kitchens. That’s how we keep things consistent. But, the building blocks of pastry mean that instructions must be closely followed. If you overcook
a piece of fish or meat, you can have another ready quickly and the customer will never know. But, get a pastry recipe wrong, and it’s crossed off the menu until the next day. Here, I’m sharing my foolproof sweet pastry recipe – it has enough butter to make it crumbly, but not so much that it’s hard to work with. I’ve used it to make one of my favourite traditional desserts: the bakewell tart.
When it comes to pastry, you have to work in an extremely structured way, with little room for error
Tom Kerridge is a well-known face on the BBC and chef-owner of acclaimed restaurants in Marlow, London and Manchester. Hear more from Tom on his favourite seasonal ideas in the latest series of the BBC Good Food Podcast at bbcgoodfood.com/podcast. @ChefTomKerridge
56 BBC Good Food Middle East August 2022
