Description
Buttery shortcrust pastry brings delightful French baking magic to home kitchens with simple ingredients and classic techniques. Professional bakers and home cooks can craft this versatile pastry base perfectly, creating delicious sweet and savory foundations for countless culinary creations you’ll enjoy making.
Ingredients
Scale
Main Ingredients:
- 175 grams (6.2 ounces) plain flour
- 85 grams (3 ounces) cold butter, cubed
Water and Seasoning:
- 23 tablespoons (345 milliliters) cold water
- Pinch salt
Instructions
- Blend cold butter cubes into flour and salt mixture using fingertips, creating a texture resembling coarse breadcrumbs.
- Gradually introduce chilled water, mixing gently until the dough coheres without becoming overly wet or sticky.
- Shape the crumbly mixture into a compact disc, ensuring smooth edges without excessive handling.
- Encase the pastry disc in plastic wrap, refrigerate for approximately 20 minutes to allow gluten to relax and butter to firm.
- Remove pastry from refrigerator and let rest briefly at room temperature to prevent cracking during rolling.
- Dust work surface generously with flour, roll pastry using even pressure to achieve uniform thickness, rotating periodically.
- Carefully transfer pastry into baking tin, gently pressing into corners and sides without stretching the dough.
- Trim excess pastry along tin edges using a sharp knife, creating a neat rim.
- Return pastry-lined tin to refrigerator for an additional 15 minutes to prevent shrinkage during baking.
- Prepare for blind baking or filling as per specific recipe requirements.
Notes
- Achieve flakier texture by using cold butter straight from the fridge and handling the dough minimally.
- Prevent tough pastry by avoiding overworking the dough, which develops gluten and makes the crust dense.
- Replace butter with cold vegetable shortening for a dairy-free version that maintains similar texture and flakiness.
- Enhance flavor by adding a pinch of sugar or herbs like thyme or rosemary to the flour mixture for extra depth.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Category: Appetizer, Snacks, Desserts
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: French
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 4
- Calories: 171
- Sugar: 0.1 g
- Sodium: 45 mg
- Fat: 11 g
- Saturated Fat: 7 g
- Unsaturated Fat: 4 g
- Trans Fat: 0.3 g
- Carbohydrates: 16 g
- Fiber: 1 g
- Protein: 2 g
- Cholesterol: 30 mg