Twisted strips made from excess dough cuttings

What can you do with excess dough cuttings?


Everytime I make pastry dough I always have excess dough.


I used the excess dough cuttings from a roasted vegetable quiche and made some twisted pastry strips.


I made a savoury pastry dough for the quiche and I wanted to make the dough sweet so instead of using flour, I dusted my work surface and the excess dough with icing sugar, and rolled out the dough to 2-3mm thick.  Each time I rolled the dough, I dusted more icing sugar on it so that I was rolling the icing sugar into the dough and making the pastry sweet. Then I cut the dough into thin rectangle strips, dusted the strips with more icing sugar and twisted the strips.

(I am right handed but I am using my left hand to twist the pastry strip so I can take photos with my right hand)

I dusted the twisted strips with a little more icing sugar and put them on a baking tray and placed them in the fridge for 30 minutes. (Allowing adequate time for resting and chilling is important for making pastry – when you make a pastry case the chilling time helps to prevent cracking and shrinkage. I’m not sure if the resting time was needed for the twisted pastry strips but I put them in the fridge as I could see the pastry strips softening as they were sitting on the kitchen counter and I was afraid that they would loose their shape, chilling the twisted strips for 30 minutes hardened the dough and I think this helped it to retain its twisted shape when baked in the oven)

I baked the twisted strips for 10 minutes, took them out of the oven and brushed them with a little melted butter and sprinkled caster sugar over the twists as well as a little cinnamon powder. I baked the twists for another 5 minutes.

Now I have tasty little TV snacks.