Pâte Brisée (Shortcrust Tart Pastry)

Place the flour and salt in a large bowl (or food processor). Add the cold butter cubes. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips, lifting and dropping the mixture from a height to aerate it, until the mixture resembles coarse, damp sand with no individual butter pieces larger than a pea. Work quickly — if your hands are warm, press the bowl against a cold surface. Alternatively, pulse in a food processor 8–10 times.

Beat together the egg yolk and ice-cold water in a small bowl. Make a well in the flour-butter mixture and pour in the egg-water. Using a fork or a pastry cutter, bring the dough together with minimal mixing — use a chopping and stirring motion, not kneading. The dough will look shaggy and barely coherent. As soon as it comes together when you squeeze a handful in your fist, stop. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and press together into a flat disc. Do not knead.

Wrap the disc tightly in cling film and refrigerate for at least 45 minutes, or up to 3 days. This rest allows the gluten to relax (so it does not shrink when baked) and the butter to firm up again (so it stays in distinct layers). Remove from the fridge 5–10 minutes before rolling if very hard.

Roll the rested dough on a lightly floured surface to 3–4 mm thickness. Line a 23 cm tart tin, pressing gently into the corners. Trim the edge and prick the base lightly with a fork. Freeze for 15 minutes. Line with parchment and fill with baking beans or rice. Blind bake at 180 C for 15–18 minutes, remove beans, brush the base with a little beaten egg, and return for 5–8 minutes until the base is dry and golden. The egg wash seals the pastry against wet fillings.