- Makes 12 mini pasties and then a handful of 'cheese straws' from the leftovers - Ready in 4 hours (lots of cooling / chilling time is included, so you'd save 1 hour if by buying ready-made, chilled, puff pastry) -
My 'rough puff' pastry comes out like really lovely shortcrust pastry. My shortcrust pastry turns out a disaster. So if this this 'rough puff' pastry recipe actually generates a delicious shortcrust-type pastry, don't feel sad, just enjoy it.
Gather together for the filling…
1 small pumpkin / 1 medium butternut squash (circa 800g weight pre-cutting-and-seed-removal) OR use approx. 650g of skin-less pumpkin flesh hacked from two carved pumpkins. This recipe works best with chunks of pumpkin (if you want to use up the stringy parts of a pumpkin then see the 'Pumpkin Soup' recipe, or the 'Pumpkin Tea Loaf' recipe or the 'Pumpkin Nutella Loaf Cake' recipe or the 'Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie' recipe).
2 tbsp olive / rapeseed oil.
1 tsp smoked paprika powder.
1 small/medium carrot (cut into 0.5cm cubes) OR blitzed into tiny pieces by a food processor.
1 tbsp melted butter.
1 tbsp boiling water.
1 tsp bouillon stock powder e.g. 'Marigold Less Salt Swiss Vegetable Bouillon powder' (available in bulk 1kg tubs) - sieved.
1/2 cup (40g) of finely grated Red Leicester cheese (or use any grate-able cheese, but using a red / orange cheese will give the filling more day-glo pumpkin colour).
1 tsp wholegrain mustard.
Pinch of ground black pepper.
EITHER,
Use 500g of ready-made, chilled, puff pastry.
OR,
Gather together for the 500g of rough puff pastry…
150g chilled butter in cubes.
300g plain flour.
Pinch of salt.
9 - 12 tbsp (135ml - 180ml) very cold water.
2 tbsp milk for sealing the pasties and for brushing over them prior to baking.
Gather together for the cheese straws...
1 tsp mustard.
80g cheddar cheese (or any grate-able white cheese), roughly grated.
Slivers of almonds (if you are making the Halloween 'Witchy Fingers' version of the cheese straws)
Get making the Filling - it needs time to cool...
1. Preheat the oven to 170 C (150 C fan) or Gas 3.
2. Knife-peel, de-seed, roughly chop and weigh out 650g of usable firm flesh from your pumpkin. (You can use a potato peeler if you are peeling a butternut squash). Remove any seeds and most of the stringy bits. Set aside the pumpkin seeds as they could be made into a tasty snack - see the 'Roasted Pumpkin Seeds' seasonal recipe blog post if you are interested in doing this. The stringy bits of the pumpkin can be used in the Pumpkin Soup recipe or in any of the sweet recipes requiring pumpkin puree (the Pumpkin Tea Loaf, the Nutella Loaf Cake or the Thanksgiving Pie).
3. Place the pumpkin pieces on a large oven tray, drizzle them with the 2 tbsp of oil and the 1 tsp of smoked paprika powder. Stir VERY well to coat. Roast for 1 hour (but give a good stir after 30 minutes). Meanwhile make the rough puff pastry (see recipe below) or make sure that you have 500g of shop-bought puff pastry.
4. Remove the pumpkin pieces from the oven once they have been roasting for the hour and allow to cool fully for 1 hour, on the tray in a cool place - putting warm filling onto cold pastry would melt the butter in the pastry, causing pastry disaster!
EITHER,
Buy 500g of chilled, ready made puff pastry.
OR,
Get making the Rough Puff Pastry…
1. In a medium mixing bowl, coat the 150g of chopped, cold butter cubes in the 300g of plain flour and the pinch of salt.
2. Add 135ml (9 tbsp) of very cold water and use your hands to squash the flour and butter cubes roughly together, until it just holds into a lumpy clump of a ball - DO NOT RUB THE FLOUR AND BUTTER TOGETHER, YOU WANT THE LUMPS OF BUTTER TO BE THERE. If it isn't all holding together, add some extra tablespoons of the cold water - ONE AT A TIME - until it does hold together (you may have to add up to 3 tbsp of extra water).
3. Put plenty of flour onto the (clean) worksurface and onto your rolling pin (use about 3 tbsp of flour in total).
4. Shape the pastry into a thick rectangle (about the size and shape of a business envelope) by gently pressing it with the flat of your hand and use a rolling pin to roll it out (moving the rolling pin in ONE DIRECTION only) away from you, until you have a rectangle 1 cm thick. One dimension will be as long as the long-side of an A4 piece of paper, the other dimension (nearest you) will not be as wide as the short-side of a piece of A4 paper.
5. Fold from the short end furthest from you – fold 1/3 of the dough towards you, then the nearest 1/3 away from you (so it folds over the first 1/3 you folded) – like folding a business letter. So you now have a rectangle made of 3 equally-sized layers.
6. Give the pastry rectangle a ¼ turn clockwise, then repeat the ONE DIRECTION rolling and the 1/3 over 1/3 folding.
7. Give another ¼ turn clockwise.
8. Do the rolling, folding into thirds, and turning process (always clockwise) 4 or 5 more times, on a well-floured board.
9. Wrap the pastry in a beeswax wrap (or a plastic bag which you can wash and re-use) and chill in the fridge for at least 30 min before using.
Get cooking the Pasties...
1. Whilst the pastry is chilling in the fridge, gather the ingredients to add to the cooled pumpkin flesh, to complete the filling.
2. Lightly flour a large baking tray or line with a reusable silicone baking sheet (ready to put the finished pasties on).
3. Boil the kettle (only 1 tbsp is needed for the recipe, so make yourself a cup of tea at the same time!)
4. Melt 1 tbsp of butter in the microwave, in a small microwave-safe bowl (such as a cereal bowl), on HIGH for circa 45 minute.
5. Divide the roasted-and-cooled pumpkin into two piles. Use scissors to cut one pile of roasted pumpkin into small (0.5cm) cubes - put these cubes into a mixing bowl. Then mash the other half of the roasted pumpkin with a potato masher (or use a handheld blitzer). Finally gently mix the two textures of pumpkin (cut and mashed) in the medium bowl.
6. Top and tail, then chop the small / medium raw carrot up into small cubes (0.5cm) OR blitz the raw carrot in a food processor.
7. Put the cubed / blitzed carrot into the bowl of melted butter and stir to coat. Then tip the buttery carrot into the pumpkin bowl.
8. In a small tea cup / mug, mix the 1 tbsp of boiling water with the 1 tsp of SIEVED bouillon / stock powder.
9. Add this 1 tbsp of hot stock, the 1/2 cup (40g) of finely grated Red Leicester cheese, the 1 tsp of wholegrain mustard and the pinch of pepper, to the bowl of pumpkin and carrot mixture. Stir this filling and set it aside for the flavours to infuse whilst you roll out the pastry.
10. Once the rough-puff pastry has been chilling for 30 minutes, divide it into 12 pieces (use digital scales and maths if you want them to be nice and even) and roll each piece out to roughly a 10cm x 10cm square. Make sure you are working on a clean and well-floured worksurface. You'll need LOTS of space!
11. Now preheat the oven to 190 C (170 C fan) or Gas 5.
12. Cut out 12 circles using a small bowl as a template (circa 10cm in diameter) - such as the Ikea 'Kalas' bowls (owned by virtually every parent, so ask to borrow a bowl if you haven't got one to hand). Just up-end it and push down firmly on it, as if it were a large cookie cutter! (See picture below). Set the pastry offcuts to one side - they will be used for cheese straws later.
13. MAKE SURE THE WORKSURFACE UNDER EACH CIRCLE IS WELL FLOURED before you start filling them. Divide the filling equally between the twelve pastry circles, keeping the mixture as a line in the middle of each circle and 0.5cm away from the edge at each side.
14. Pour 2 tbsp milk into a cup and use some of it to brush (with a pastry brush) a little bit of milk around the edge of each pastry circle (to act as 'glue') and then fold the side of the circle upwards to close them over the top of the mound of filling, to make a traditional half-moon pasty shape. (You'll be using more of the milk in a moment, so don't tip it away or drink it yet!)
15. Tip the pasty over onto one flat side and use a fork to press down around the newly-sealed edges, to make indentations which will help 'knit' the edges together - you don't want filling leaking out.
16. Brush the raw pasties with a little milk (so they will turn golden and shiny in the oven), use a fish slice to transfer them to the floured baking tray (or line the tray with a silicone reusable liner) and bake for 45 minutes.
17. Use any offcuts of pastry to make cheese straws...
Get making the cheese straws...
Carefully pile up the pastry offcuts - don't clump them into a ball or the layers will be lost, (but they will still taste great even if you do clump them, so fear not if you are in a rush). Roll out the pastry into a business-letter-sized rectangle, again. Spread 1 tsp of wholegrain mustard over the pastry rectangle (use your fingertips to do this) and spread out a generous layer (about 1/2 a cup or 40g) of coarsely grated cheese - for these cheese straws, white cheese (e.g. cheddar) looks better than orange/red cheese - sorry! Fold the mustard-and-cheese-covered rectangle into thirds (like you did when initially making the rough puff pastry), roll out into a rectangle again and cover with just coarsely grated white cheese this time (another 1/2 a cup or 40g). Fold up into thirds again, roll out until the thickness of two £1 coins on top of each other and trim into 1 - 2 cm wide sticks. Twist them a few times if you want to (see picture below), or leave them straight.
Or make knife marks for 'knuckles' and 'nail bed' indents so they become witchy fingers (see the pictures at the bottom of this page). Brush the cheese straws with milk and add them to the hot oven - they will take about 35 minutes to bake through (so they'll be ready at the same time as the pasties, as the pasties have had a head start).
17. If the pasties still look too light in colour after the 45 minutes cooking time is up, put the grill on and give them 1 minute to brown - set a timer and watch them so that they don't burn!
18. Cool the pasties and the cheese straws on a wire rack for a couple of minutes, so they don't go soggy - then serve immediately, with a leafy salad (and with a sliced almond sliver for each fingernail if you are making the gruesome version of the cheese straws!).
The Cheese Straws can be decorated as 'Witchy Fingers' for Halloween, or twirled along their length or left straight and plain. They taste delicious however you shape them!
Adapted from recipes given to me by my talented home- baker friend E.
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