Vegetable and Sundried Tomato Pasty

Where I live, the Pasty is something very important. Now I can't remember the last time I actually ate a traditional Cornish pasty because it's been some time thanks to my stomach! I've spent so long trying to get my gluten free pastry right and finally I have found what I am happy with.

I'm going to share my recipe with you (which should make you a couple of pasties) as part of my baking journey with Jenny and Helen but you may like to change a few things to make it work for you. The one ingredient you must not leave out in my experience, is the egg!

First you'll need a selection of vegetables. I chose:

Potatoes, thinly sliced and chopped

Mushrooms, chopped

Onion, finely diced

Salt and pepper to season

Optional: 1 jar of Sun dried tomatoes of which I used about 4 large tomatoes. You could use anything that takes your fancy plus more/different vegetables.

For the pastry:

200g plain gluten free flour

100g stork* margarine

Pinch of salt

1 egg

Cold water (just have this in a jug and add as you need to get your pastry to the right consistency)

Pre heat oven to 200

If you have chopped your ingredients up nice and small you won't need to cook before placing in the pastry. If you prefer, cook your potatoes and slice or mash before popping on your pastry.

• Put the flour and butter into a large bowl.
• Use your hands to mix the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.
• Add the egg and mix in (using hands or a spoon if you like) then stir in the water and quickly bring the pastry together until it's a sticky dough (This pastry tends to absorb more water than 'normal' pastry so add a few more drops of water if necessary)
• I like to lightly dust some cling film and roll out my pastry using this method to avoid it sticking to my work surface and then breaking
• Once rolled, transfer your pastry to your chosen flat tin. Make a 'guideline' to separate the top half of your pasty from the bottom. You can now add your filling to the bottom half before gently folding the top half over to cover your filling
• Crimp (or 'press down if you're anything like me!) and make 2 small slits/holes in the top of the pastry before brushing with egg yolk. Bake the pasties until they are a lovely golden colour and by inserting a knife gently through the pastry to see if the vegetables are cooked through.

I hope you have some joy with this gluten free pastry. It can take a little patience and a lot of practice but you should see some (and taste some!) good results. *I'd like to thank Stork for providing me with a pack of their very tasty vegetable margarine which seems to have made all the difference to my pastry baking.

Cupcake Mumma