Gary Rhodes

Sweet Black Pepper and Crunchy Sugar Pastry

Preparation info
    • Difficulty

      Easy

Appears in
Fabulous Food
Fabulous Food

By Gary Rhodes

Published 1997

  • About

Black pepper can be added to unsweetened shortcrust pastry for savoury flans and quiches to give an extra bite. The pepper flavour also works well in the sweet pastry: it spices up the tart without being overpowering. The crunchy texture of demerara sugar helps balance the ‘hot’ flavour.

Ingredients

  • 1 quantity of Sweet Shortcrust Pastry
  • 1 teaspoon cracked black peppercorns (not too coarse)
  • 50–75

Method

Cracked black pepper can be found in most supermarkets. This guarantees that the coarse pepper is totally even in size. Add the pepper to the flour and then complete the sweet shortcrust pastry recipe. Once rested, roll out and sprinkle half with demerara sugar. Fold the other half over and re-roll. The demerara sugar will keep its crunchy texture inside the pastry.