This homemade white wine shortcrust pastry is the perfect shortcrust for savoury pies. The addition of wine to the pastry dough gives this white wine tart shell more flavour, to perfectly complement any filling you wish to add. Easily make a double batch at once and save time on your next tart by storing this dough in the freezer!
This easy shortcrust recipe will allow you to make countless savoury pie recipes without ever going to need to use a store-bought pastry shell. This recipe yields enough to make 2 pie shells. Since you need to get busy in the kitchen and you’ll have to dish the food processor later, why not just make a double batch and save yourself time on your next dinner? Wrap half of the dough and freeze it for later. And enjoy a delicious homemade shortcrust pastry from scratch on your next vegetable pie!
What you will need:
- Flour
- Butter – cold, cubed
- White wine
- Salt
This is a rather classic shortcrust recipe, where the only notable difference is the use of white wine instead of ice water. You don’t need a fancy expensive wine for this recipe, go with anything you enjoy drinking. Got leftovers in a bottle you opened the day before? This could be the best way to use it up! My only recommendation is to go for something dry or semi-dry, as we don’t want to add sweetness to the final product.
How to make white wine shortcrust
- Have the butter cold from the fridge, cubed. The wine also needs to be refrigerator-cold – well white wine should always be chilled, right?
- Add the flour, cubed butter and salt to a food processor. Blitz until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs (see picture).
- Always processing, pour in the cold wine. The dough will start to form and gather into a ball within seconds from the addition of the liquid. Stop the processor as soon as it shapes up.
- Divide the dough into 2 balls. The use of a kitchen scale is helpful to make 2 equal portions.
- Tightly wrap both balls in plastic wrap. One will go into the fridge to chill 20 minutes before using, while the other can be stored in the freezer for the next time you will need to make a shortcrust tart.
How to press dough in a tart pan
The longer you chill your shortcrust, the firmer it will get. This allows for rolling it out, if you wish to do so. However, I find that pressing the dough onto the tart pan is a rather easy and clean job to do – no floured surfaces to clean after, no rolling pin required. The best part: no need to chill the dough for 1 hour. Actually, you could skip the chilling altogether! I do recommend to give the dough a little fridge time, but if you’re really in a hurry you could just proceed to press your dough as soon as it gets out of the food processor!
- First take some dough and form it into a long sausage. You can work in batches, doesn’t need to be one piece. Place the dough sausage around the sides of the tart pan.
- With the help of a fork press the sausage against the sides of the pan, creating shell sides that are about 2-3 mm thick.
- Press down any dough parts that have not been pressed to the side.
- Keep pressing more dough to the bottom of the pan, filling the whole surface, working in batches. Try to get the same thickness all over; use your hand to even out the dough.
- Using the same fork, proceed to prick the bottom and sides of the shortcrust pastry. This will make sure the pastry does not rise too much as it pre-bakes, and will help quicker deflating if this occurs.
What if I don’t have a food processor?
Before I bought a food processor I was using my hand-held electric mixer. A stand mixer works as well, too. What’s important is that you use the hook attachment(s). If using an electric mixer instead of a food processor with blades, you need to have room temperature butter. This will make it easier to mix with the flour. Mixing with the hook attachments will create the same “coarse crumbs” result, but it may take 4-5 minutes as opposed to 1-2 in the food processor.
If you don’t have either a food processor or an electric mixer, you can do it the old-school way: by hand. Work the cubed butter and flour together first, then incorporate the butter. In this case, you need to use cold butter, as the heat from your hands will increase its temperature. If you’re interested in this process, I recommend this shortcrust dough by hand recipe.
Either by hand or by electric mixer, the dough will get softer than if using a food processor. It’s because you’re using room temperature butter, or warming it with your hands. While you can skip chilling the dough when making it in a food processor, you need to chill it at least 20 minutes if using one of the other 2 methods.
How to use this white wine shortcrust
Now that you have a delicious shortcrust pastry you can make lots of fantastic savoury pies! I recommend to always pre-bake your homemade white wine shortcrust 10 minutes at 200°C before adding the filling and baking it further. If you need inspiration for the fillings, here are some favourites:
- Leek and mushroom pie – a lovely vegetable pie made with sautéed leeks and button mushrooms, mixed with creamy ricotta.
- Red onion and cottage cheese pie – so simple yet so elegant!
- Broccoli and hard cheese pie – the most simple things are the most delicious.
- Mini mushroom and parmigiano tarts – miniature tarts are lovely single-serves!
Do you like savoury pies? Have you ever tried using white wine in your shortcrust recipe? Let me know in the comments! And don’t forget to pin this recipe for later.
White wine shortcrust pastry
Equipment
- Food processor
- Tart pan
- Fork
- Kitchen scale
Instructions
- Add the flour, cubed butter and salt to a food processor. Blitz until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
- Always processing, pour in the cold wine. The dough will start to form and gather into a ball within seconds from the addition of the liquid. Stop the processor as soon as it shapes up.
- Divide the dough into 2 balls using a kitchen scale to make them equal. Tightly wrap both balls in plastic wrap. One will go into the fridge to chill 20 minutes before using, while the other can be stored in the freezer for the next time you will need to make a shortcrust tart. If short on time, you can skip the chilling but be aware that the dough might be quite soft to work.
- Press the dough into a tart pan and prick the bottom and sides with a fork. Pre-bake in the preheated oven at 200°C (390°F) for 10 minutes before adding the filling and continuing to bake your savoury pie.
