Why is my pastry blistering in the microwave?
I am trying to make my own shortcrust pastry, but don't have a blender or food mixer. I also don't have a gas or electric oven and am using the convection bake function of a microwave.
I mix 1 1/4 cups of flour, 1/2 cup of butter (grated with a cheese grater then back in the fridge before finally mixing into the flour), 1/4 tsp sugar & 1/4 tsp salt, and about 5 tbs of ice water. Then I convection-bake it in the microwave.
Somehow I just can't get it right. I tried blind baking and my pastry ended up looking like a very pimply kid with blisters all over. It was also sweating butter or something a fair bit when it was baking. It tastes okay, but a bit crunchy like a cookie, and impossible to cut without breaking apart.
What am I doing wrong? Is it the temperature (190 degree Celsius/375 F)? Is it because I grated my butter? Too much water? The way I roll my pastry? Any advice is really appreciated as I'm a total newbie to baking and don't understand a whole lot about it yet.
Best Answer
This is because you are using a microwave. In theory, if you could turn off the microwaves in the microwave oven, you could use the convection function to bake things. In practice, we have had several questions which indicate that this is not how convection microwaves work. They keep nuking your dough, making it inedible. In your case, they are cooking all the moisture locally, resulting in mini-steam-explosions which create blisters, and a dried out, hard and crispy dough.
I am sorry, but there is no way you can bake with a microwave, not short pastry, and not other things. One exception might be quickly eaten "microwave cupcakes" which don't have much flour to start with and are baked for a very short time. I have seen people claim that they work, but never actually tried them.
For baking, you need a non-microwaving oven. The cheapest solution is a toaster oven with a 30x30 cm inner size, they are somewhat trickier to use than a big oven, but good enough for a small budget.
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How do you prevent pastry blisters?
Here are five steps to prevent your pastry from shrinking when it's baked:Why is my pastry blisters?
This may be due to insufficient mixing of the fat and flour, or the addition of too much water. mixing fat and flour. eventually escape as steam on baking causing blisters. Shrinkage is generally due to over stretching the pastry.Can you cook pastry in a microwave?
Microwave on MED 6-9 minutes. Check for doneness, let sit 2 minutes (it will continue to cook a bit after you take it out of the microwave). Use in any pie recipe requiring a baked pie crust.Can you blind bake pastry in a microwave?
Prick the edges of the crust with a fork to allow steam to escape as the crust cooks. Set your microwave oven to high power and cook the crust for five to seven minutes, until the dough changes to an opaque color and an inspection of the bottom of the pie plate reveals that the crust is dry.How Can I Stop My Pastry Sinking? | This Morning
More answers regarding why is my pastry blistering in the microwave?
Answer 2
I tried to make a mini chorizo pastie in the microwave but the chorizo burnt and the pastry utterly failed. I would not recomened to put shortcrust pastry in a micorwave, the best way of cooking short crust pastry is in an electric oven.
Answer 3
It's the temperature. Try at 170C. It also helps if you put it on the turntable.
Answer 4
Also if you can put you pastry on the out side of the turntable most microwave have a dead spot which happens to be in the centre of the microwave.
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