In my quest to reduce saturated fats from my diet, particularly palm fat and hydrogenated oils, I have been investigating using finely ground up nuts to provide a shortening to pastry bases.
I totally cracked it with my mince tarts
OK, I got to get quantities sorted out, but this is the basic recipe.
Finely ground nuts (cashews, brazils, almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts) (ground to flour basically)
Finely ground whole oats (ground to flour basically)
Wheat flour
Sprinkling of sugar
Enough sunflower oil to get the mixture to a breadcrumb state
Water to mix it all to a dough.
It's approximately equal quantities of nuts to flour and oats. Make it like you would normal pastry. It is very short when you are rolling it out, but goes to a nice biscuity texture when cooked - crisp and short at the same time. After cooking allow to cool a little before moving, as it will be a little soft and crumbly until cooled. It doesn't taste nutty to me when cooked - it would do if you used peanuts, though.
It should work with more sugar as a biscuit and no sugar as a savoury pastry, too.
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