This is recipe eight from the Outlander Kitchen Cookbook.  At this point, I have one week left with the cookbook before I have to return it to the library for the next recipient.  In some ways, I wish I had just bought the cookbook outright; another part of me knows I probably wouldn’t have tried as many recipes as I did if I hadn’t been working under a deadline.  There are so many good recipes in this cookbook and I’ve barely scratched the surface.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: one of the things I really like about this cookbook is that it’s internally consistent.  There is one short crust recipe and one puff pastry recipe, and they are used throughout the rest of the cookbook (eight recipes use the short crust recipe and three recipes use the puff pastry).

I wanted to move slightly away from the baked goods I’ve been making for the past two weeks and explore other recipes.  I decided to make Brianna’s bridies, which call for short crust pastry.

For the short crust recipe you will need:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 cup (227g or 2 sticks) cold butter

1/2 cup ice water, plus a few tablespoons very cold vodka (more on that in a second)

1 large egg yolk

1 teaspoon lemon juice or white vinegar

Stir together the flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl.  

Grate the butter into the flour and work it into your dough with your fingers until it is completely coated with flour.

Now make a little well in the middle of your flour and add the ice water, egg yolk, and lemon juice to it.  Stir around with your hand until it just comes together to form a dough.  My dough was a little dry, so instead of adding more water, I added a few tablespoons of very cold VODKA.  Because vodka is mostly alcohol and not water, it hydrates the dough without creating more gluten (which would make the dough tough, not flaky and light.

Now, either in the bowl or on a floured surface, knead quickly and lightly into a ball.

The egg yolk adds a nice yellow color to the dough.  Divide the dough in two and tightly wrap them separately in plastic and let them rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes or up to two days before baking.

Use them in any recipe that calls for pie crust.  Bake at 400 degrees F for 30-40 minutes until golden brown.  Using this short crust recipe made the bridies taste like they were wrapped in pie crust, which I guess they were!

Little Bread Dude #2 approved of the bridies.  Here he is reaching for his fourth.