33.1 Pastry doughs

Tart doughs

A tart is baked in a shallow pan with fluted sides. Its dough is made with butter, which gives the crust its flavor, and it bakes up tender. Four doughs are used.

• Pâte brisée means "broken dough" in French. The cook rubs cold butter into flour until the mixture looks like coarse meal, with small bits of butter still in sight. Fat coats the grains of flour, so less gluten forms, and less gluten means a more tender pastry. It is mixed the same way as mealy pie dough. see chapter 7: Flour
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• Pâte sucrée means "sugared dough". It holds more sugar than brisée. The sugar keeps it tender, but the dough is soft and harder to work with. It can be mixed like brisée or by the creaming method. Use it for small tarts and pastries, or bake it on its own as a cookie.
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• Pâte sablée takes its name from the French word for sand, which is how the baked dough feels. Compared with brisée, it usually has more fat and less egg. Most bakers now make it by creaming.
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• Short dough is a family name for variations on the three above. It stays tender for the same reason they do: very little gluten develops while it is mixed.

Puff pastry

Puff pastry that is handled badly will not rise or will bake up with a poor finish. Follow these rules:

• Work with it only while it is cold and firm. Soft dough smears when cut, the layers glue together, and they cannot lift.
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• Cut with a sharp knife or cutter, pressing straight down. Never twist a cutter.
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• Turn each cut piece over as you lay it on the baking sheet, so the cut side is down. Any layers that did stick become the base, and the rest are free to rise.
• Brush egg wash on the top only. Keep it off the sides, which must not turn sticky.
• Let cut pieces rest before baking. The gluten relaxes and the dough shrinks less. see chapter 7: Flour
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• Scraps can be pressed together and given a three-fold to build new layers.
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• Bake at 375°F to 400°F. Only high heat makes enough steam to lift the dough.
• For large pieces, start the oven hotter, then turn it down once the pastry has risen and let it finish cooking.

Pâte à choux

Éclair paste is known in the trade as pâte à choux, "cabbage paste", because the baked puffs look like small cabbages. It is the one pastry dough that is cooked in a pot before it is baked. It can be sweet or savory, and the way it is piped decides what the pastry is called.

It takes only a few minutes to make and is normally used straight away. Left uncovered it forms a skin, so lay a damp cloth over it, and do not let it stand more than an hour before use.

• Heat the liquid, fat, salt and sugar until they reach a full rolling boil. A hard boil spreads everything evenly through the liquid.
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• Tip in all the flour in one go. Stir with a wooden spoon until it is fully mixed in and the dough starts to come away from the sides of the pot.
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• Keep stirring. This cooks away the taste of raw flour. When a thin film forms on the bottom of the pot, take it off the heat.
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• Stir on as the dough cools. Steam rises from it and slowly lessens. Bring it down to about 140°F; eggs added to hotter dough will scramble.
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• Beat in the eggs in small amounts, never all at once. After each addition the dough looks broken, with streaks of egg and lumps of paste. Wait until it is smooth again before adding more.
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• Stop when the paste is smooth and a little slack, yet firm enough to keep its shape when piped.
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Four classic pastries come from this one dough:

• Cream puffs, piped as rounds with a plain round tip, in whatever size the dessert needs.
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• Éclairs, piped as straight lines, also with a round tip.
• Paris-Brest, piped with a star tip into a ring shaped like a bicycle wheel. It honors the bicycle race from Paris to Brest, first run in 1891.
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• Gougères, savory puffs, made by working herbs, spices and cheese into the dough.
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Strudel and phyllo

These two doughs end up as sheets so thin they are almost transparent. For a dessert they are stacked, each sheet brushed with melted fat before the next goes on.

Strudel dough is flour, water and eggs, stretched by hand over a floured cloth until you can see through it. Stretching it well takes patience, time and practice. Phyllo is the Greek form of the same idea, and kitchens usually buy it ready-made, rolled up in thin plastic. Keep a slightly damp cloth over the sheets you are not using so they do not dry out.

• Lay down one sheet.
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• Brush melted butter gently over all of it.
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• Lay the next.
• Keep going until the stack is as thick as you need.

Meringue

Meringue is egg white and sugar beaten into a light foam, piped into shapes and baked until dry. It is not a pastry dough, but it can do a pastry's work, and it can be baked in layers for a cake. see chapter 15: Meringue