Tortelli d'Erbetta di Parma

Pie crust & blind baking 29 recipes

• The shell goes into the oven cold and the oven is fully up to heat, so the structure sets before the fat has time to melt out of it.
• Lined and weighted right into the corners rather than heaped in the middle, so the sides are held against the tin as the fat softens.
• Docked where it is not meant to puff, and the base stays flat rather than lifting into a dome under its own steam.
• The weights come out and the base gets dry heat of its own before anything wet arrives. Pale and damp is not baked, and a filling will not finish it.
• The edges are set and coloured and the shell releases from the tin rather than gripping it.

Where it goes wrong It went in warm, or the weights only filled the middle. The sides slump down the tin before the pastry sets, so the case is shallower than it should be, the filling overflows it, and the base is still raw underneath: the soggy bottom, arrived at three ways at once.

Kneading dough 57 recipes

• The work changed it: what began shaggy and rough is one smooth, cohesive mass, with nothing raggy hanging off it.
• The surface has gone satin and barely tacky, releasing cleanly from hands and board instead of leaving a trail.
• Worked to the point this dough asks for and no further: springy and elastic where structure is wanted, just brought together where tenderness is.
• Torn or cut open, the inside is uniform: no dry streaks, no unmixed pockets, no core of flour that never met the water.
• After its rest it rolls and shapes without snapping back. A dough that fights the pin needed more rest, not more force.

Where it goes wrong Sticking was fought with flour instead of technique or patience, stroke after stroke, until the dough had taken in far more than the formula asked; it turns tight and dry under the hands, and bakes dense however well everything else goes.