FAILURE

Total failure.

I thought I was the big man in the kitchen. Sure, I've had failures before. Big ones. In this very kitchen, I once tried to bake some white chocolate chip scrumptious something or other, from a recipe on the side of a funky shampoo bottle. A shampoo bottle. Think about that. Don't know why I didn't. Didn't even buy the shampoo. I was working near a concession stall in Harrods that sold the stuff and just scribbled it down one day. Big failure. Big mess.

I thought I was the big man, I've now made three quiches, one a total mess but quite tasty (what was left of it), one a little shallow and one an absolute, chest-thumpingly marvellous success. I've made three quiches and I thought that qualified me to make puff pastry for sausage rolls, from scratch.

I mostly blame Delia.

Delia Smith makes it sound simple. According to her recipe, we neatly segue from,

'coat all the pieces of fat with flour until the mixture is crumbly' (she means butter, not fat, for the record),

to,

'Next add enough cold water to form a dough that leaves the bowl clean, using your hands to bring it all gently together.'


And that's it.

No measurements, no indication of how much water, no problem! according to Delia.

Well, looks like I added too much water, Delia!

You would not believe the amount of information there is out there on the internet about making pastry dough from scratch that I didn't bother to look at, because I had Delia's recipe and it looked bloody simple. Reems of video. Columns and comments and theories. And it all pretty much says, 'Good luck, novice! Hope there's someone there to laugh at you when it all goes wrong and you're left with cold lumpy porridge stuck to your fingers.'

One helpful chap even notes,

'Practice
Everyone's ability to handle doughs, both the mixing and the rolling, increases with experience. If your first efforts at pastry doughs are not successful, refer to the corrective measures described below. Above all keep practicing. The rewards will be beautiful tarts and pies, appealing to the palate as well as the eye.'

Above all keep practicing.

Bloody strawberries don't defrost from frozen either.