Basic Pastry Dough (2024)

FAQs

What are the three 3 basic rules for pastry making? ›

General rules

Measure the ingredients carefully. Use good quality flour. Mix together the flour and salt by sieving. Keep everything as cool as possible otherwise the fat may melt which would spoil the finished dish.

It is based on a dough made of milk, flour, a little sugar, and, of course, yeast. The rolled-in butter gives the dough its flaky texture.

By rubbing fat into flour before adding any liquid, small cells of flour coated in fat are formed, giving shortcrust pastry its fragmentary, discontinuous, particulate texture. This layer of fat makes it difficult for water to hydrate the flour, so structure-giving gluten proteins cannot form.

The first golden rule of making pastry; keep the ingredients, the bowl and the hands as cool as possible.

Water, however, is absorbed much less easily into flour proteins when the temperature is colder. That's why purists recommend cold ingredients, cold equipment and marble boards. Keeping the butter cold also helps when making short crust pastry because it doesn't melt into the flour when you are working it in.

The first golden rule of making shortcrust pastry is to keep the ingredients, the bowl, the surface, and your hands as cool as possible. When the pastry mixture becomes too warm, the end result is a greasy and/or heavy, dull finished pastry crust. Run your hands under cold water before starting to mix pastry.

Shortcrust pastry is the simplest and most common pastry. It is made with flour, fat, butter, salt, and water to bind the dough. Pâte brisée is the French version of classic pie or tart shortcrust pastry.

There are five main types of pastry dough for creating pastries: flaky, shortcrust, puff, choux and filo. All of them are made primarily from flour, water and fat. However, these five types of pastry dough each have slightly different core ingredients, different ratios of ingredients and, ultimately, different uses.

pastry, stiff dough made from flour, salt, a relatively high proportion of fat, and a small proportion of liquid. It may also contain sugar or flavourings. Most pastry is leavened only by the action of steam, but Danish pastry is raised with yeast.

Egg yolks added to shortcrust pastry make it richer and slows down the development of the gluten in the flour, which is exactly what you want. Gluten has an elastic quality which can make pastry rubbery if overdeveloped. But the resulting crumbly dough can be difficult to work with.

What does butter do to pastry? ›

In pastry making, butter plays a fundamental role because it makes the pastry ""waterproof"". At the same time, it adds crustiness and crumble to shortcrust and all dry pastries (small cakes for eating on the move, for example) and brings softness and creaminess to risen doughs.

Most pie dough/pastry benefits from a rest in the refrigerator as it allows the glutens in the flour to relax - this should help to give a more tender pie crust with less shrinkage. It can also give time for the liquids in the dough to be absorbed, giving slightly less dry spots in the pastry.

If the dough is overworked, it can become tough and difficult to roll out. This can happen if the dough is kneaded too much or if too much flour is added during the rolling process. Shortcrust pastry can shrink during baking if it's not properly chilled beforehand or if it's rolled too thin.

Plain flours are best for pastry because their gluten strands are relaxed while the stronger gluten in bread flours can cause pastry to shrink back. Warm pastry cooked in an oven that was not pre-heated can collapse as its water evaporates before the pastry cooks and hardens.

Before blind baking a pastry case, always prick the base with a fork (about 12 times for a standard size case) to help any trapped steam between the pastry and the tin or dish to escape during baking – this will stop the pastry base bubbling and lifting away from the tin or dish which can take up valuable filling space ...

Pastry is a type of dough made with flour, water and shortening. Baked pastry dough can be sweet or savory, and consumed alone or with fillings.

A good pastry is light and airy and fatty, but firm enough to support the weight of the filling. When making a shortcrust pastry, care must be taken to blend the fat and flour thoroughly before adding any liquid---to ensure that the flour granules are adequately coated with fat and less likely to develop gluten.

There are 6 main principles of baking: wet ingredients, dry ingredients, leavening agents, flavoring, heat, and different mixing methods. There are 6 main principles of baking: wet ingredients, dry ingredients, leavening agents, flavoring, heat, and different mixing methods.