Is there any use for cooked pastry offcuts?
Chances are we’re talking about trimmings from a blind baked tart case, so the first port of call is to stay on theme. “If you’re already baking a tart, add more texture by sprinkling those lovely, crunchy pastry offcuts over the top,” says Ruby Bhogal, author of One Bake Two Ways. Otherwise, break them down (you still want “a nice chunk”, Bhogal says), brush with melted butter, sprinkle with demerara sugar, and return to the oven to crisp up further. “That’s a really nice snack with a cup of tea,” she says, adding that you could also deploy them in trifles or to top cakes.
Offcuts also play well with chocolate, so in theory you could do “a fridge-cake situation”, suggests Nicola Lamb, pastry chef and author of Sift (although you might need to save offcuts in the freezer until you have sufficient quantities). That said, Lamb and Verena Lochmuller, development chef at the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen, both agree that the more sensible path would be to blitz those pastry bits into a cheesecake base. “You could also put the blitzed pastry anywhere you would a crumble, such as the bottom of a posset pot,” Lamb adds.
For savoury scraps, Lochmuller envisions a sort of dukkah. “Roughly chop up the pastry, maybe with some flaked sea salt and spices, and you could also add nuts,” she says. That would bring a welcome crunch to salads, avocado, rice or eggs. Lamb, meanwhile, considers her offcuts a chef’s treat: “This is your little snack,” she says, so break it into shards and top with a bit of chutney and cheese, or, if you’re entertaining, a marinated tomato and some ricotta salata. “Use them anywhere you would a cracker or wafer, so on a cheeseboard or, for dessert, with macerated strawberries and some cream, or just ice-cream.”
Having raw offcuts in your freezer is also a boon. “If you have any emergency patching-up situations to do, just pinch off a bit and warm it in your hands,” Lamb says. Sure, you could always mix water and flour for a quick fix, but pastry is always better. Spent puff has a good snack game, as long as you don’t keep re-rolling it. “You don’t want to ruin the lamination,” Bhogal warns, so stack any offcuts on top of each other, then roll and stamp out, say, vol-au-vents. “Brush with melted butter and Marmite for umami punchiness, sprinkle with parmesan or gruyere, and maybe a few chopped herbs, then crisp up in the oven.” Lochmuller, meanwhile, sets her sights on cheese straws – she spreads hers with mustard, harissa or pesto, as well as the cheese (feta is a good shout), before twisting and baking. “That’s a great one for using up whatever’s in the fridge.”
If you’re in possession of a decent number of offcuts, though, think patchwork pie lid. “Lay the pastry pieces on top of the filling in an arty, chaotic mess, but don’t fill in all the gaps,” Lochmuller says. “Egg wash it, put it in the oven and it will bake unusually, because you haven’t controlled the shape.” Size isn’t everything, mind. “Do you know what’s better than big food? Mini food,” exclaims Bhogal, who pipes Nutella or Biscoff into the middle of bits of puff pastry, then rolls them into balls and bakes. But be warned: those won’t be an exercise in self-restraint.
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