Puff Paste of Suet

Ingredients

• 2 cup flour
• 0.5 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup suet, finely chopped and freed of skin
• 1 cup water

Method

Suet pastry relies on the fat remaining distinct from the flour until steam forces them together during cooking — the opposite of shortcrust, where you rub fat in uniformly beforehand. The suet stays in particles, creating a pastry with a crumbly, almost biscuity crumb when baked and a denser, more cohesive structure when boiled. Keep all ingredients cold before mixing, particularly the suet and water; warmth will cause the fat to smear and lose its discrete particles.

Combine 250g flour, 5g salt, and 5g baking powder and sift into a mixing bowl. Toss the 250g finely chopped suet — stripped of all membrane and sinew — in a little extra flour (roughly 15g) to coat each piece evenly; this prevents clumping and helps maintain separation during mixing. Add the floured suet to the dry ingredients. Pour in 240ml cold water and mix with a fork or your fingertips until a stiff, rather shaggy dough forms. The dough should come together but remain noticeably textured; you're not aiming for smoothness here. Stop mixing once the water is fully incorporated — overworking will toughen the final result and cause the suet to begin breaking down.

The dough is now ready for use. For boiling — the traditional method for puddings and dumplings — the dough must be tight enough to hold its shape in simmering liquid; if it feels slack, work in an extra 10–15g flour. When boiled, the water penetrates the pastry, the suet melts, and the starch gelatinises, yielding a moist, spongy texture that absorbs fruit coulis or gravy. For baking in a pie, the texture remains closer to a light scone, with a crisper exterior. Roll to roughly 8mm thickness on a floured surface and handle sparingly to avoid compressing the pastry and squeezing out the fat pockets that create lift.