Types of Pastry In Island Delight Patties

One question that crops up every now and again is about the types of pastry we use for our patties. We often get customers asking us about our products – anything from what are the ingredients in Island Delight foods, to information on potential allergy-triggering substances, through to where can they buy our patties and ready-meals. But the pastry question is the one that causes the most confusion!

We currently have four products in flaky pastry, and eight in shortcrust. It’s all down to a matter of taste. Although the shortcrust is more authentic, we decided to include a small range of flaky pastry patties just for variety when people fancied a change now and then.

What Is Shortcrust Pastry?

Shortcrust has a slightly thicker but crumbly texture than flaky pastry. It’s perfect for foods with wet fillings, as it’s resistant to soaking up fluids. Plain shortcrust mainly fills savoury dishes, but it also fills puddings like tarts, proving its all-purpose nature. Shortcrust pastry doesn’t rise, flake or puff up, as it contains no raising agents.

What Is Flaky Pastry?

This is often confused with puff pastry, but they’re not the same things at all. It’s important to distinguish, as we don’t want anyone to expect our flaky pastry products to be like the kind of pastry they get on pasties they buy in places like Gregg’s! That kind of pastry is puff pastry – the sort that’s brown on the outside and then peels away in thin white layers all the way through (produced by sandwiching a layer of fat between layers of pastry and then folding it over on itself multiple times).

Indeed no – our flaky pastry is more rustic or ‘home made’, produced by using a rough, short, mix that relies on discrete pieces of fat remaining in the finished pastry paste and producing the rise during baking. It’s the pastry that leaves behind crumbs (no chance of eating it undetected), but it’s delicious!

Our products also have a distinctive yellowish colour from the turmeric extract they contain. The traditional origination of this was from simple economy: people would cook the curry filling and leave it to cool, the meat fat would then rise to the top and set hard, transporting the turmeric from the curry powder within it. This fat would then be carefully lifted off and used as the shortening in the pastry.

What Fats Are Used In The Patties’ Production?

We do not use vegetable oil, suet, or any animal fats. Both types of our pastry contain just plain wheat flour, water, vegetable margarine and vegetable shortening, along with colourings and preservatives. This also allows our patties to be classified as vegan.

We hope this clarifies the big question over pastry and that you now feel confident to choose the patties best-suited to your taste.