The lattice pastry photo guide

If you're a novice then the best way of mastering the technique is to practice and use leftover puff pastry and follow the guide below – you're not under any pressure and it's not as difficult as you might think :

Flour your surface and roll out the pastry – you want at least 10 x 1cm strips for the practice run – you can continue and make it larger if you wish.

Place a strip of baking parchment on your surface. Glue the parchment in place with small pieces of pastry in each corner – it will stop the parchment sliding.

Lay six strips vertically then fold

back alternate strips – lay another strip horizontally

and replace the folded back strips

fold back the opposite three vertical strips

and repeat – lay another strip horizontally and

replace the folded back strips

keep folding back and alternating the strips

until you've created what looks to me like a portcullis!

It might sound complicated but I assure you it isn't and it's much easier to have a go when you don't need to produce an end result. All you're using is leftover pastry and it doesn't take a lot. I scaled it down in the photographs deliberately – it's easier to control.

When you decide to create it for real use a beaten egg to glue your strips as you are building your lattice – obviously it'll be on top of your filling anyway but it'll help keep the shape. Don't forget to measure the length of your strips – adding 10cms to whatever size pie dish you're using – for example, 23cms + 10cms – 33cms to give you overlap of 5cms each side of the dish to trim and tuck down into the pie. Finally egg wash and bake!

There are photos of my version up next …