Buttery Flaky Pie Crust Recipe / Short Crust Pastry (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to making flaky crust? ›

Cold butter is the key to flaky crusts. Do not skip this step. You must put your butter in the freezer to get it nice and cold. Many people do not like working with frozen butter, but it makes all the difference in the world when you create your pie dough.

Shortcrust pastry dough is a type of pie crust. Known as pâte brisée in French, it doesn't include leavening agents and (usually) no sugar. It's flaky and crispy rather than puffy once baked. The most often used type of pastry, it's good for both sweet and savory recipes.

Yes, shortening yields a very flaky pastry – but it's tasteless. And a well made pastry using butter is certainly flaky enough – but more importantly, tastes so much better. Even doing 50/50 of each lacks flavour. So all-butter it is.

The pros: Butter has the best flavor. A butter pie crust forms light, lofty, flaky layers while it bakes. The flakiness comes partially from the water content of butter, which evaporates as the pie bakes and turns to steam, separating and puffing up the layers in dough.

Adding vinegar tenderizes the pastry. It inhibits gluten from forming there by making the pastry tender and flaky.

Flaky pastry, like the one pictured here, is made by incorporating small chunks of solid butter or fat through flour (either but 'rubbing in' using your fingertips or 'cutting through' using the cutting blade of a food processor) then binding the dough with moisture from other ingredients such as water and/or eggs.

In the United States, what is commonly known as shortcrust pastry in other parts of the world is referred to as pie crust. This simple yet delicious dough is made from just a few basic ingredients, including flour, butter, salt, and water.

We've all met our share of tough, soggy and simply unamusing pastries. But a good shortcrust pastry, one that crumbles, flakes and can hold and deliver its filling – sweet or savoury, soft or firm – intact makes for a memorable moment's eating.

If you are making a pie with a crust you'll need to decide which type of pastry to go for. Shortcrust pastry is the best for pies that fully encase a filling as they tend to be firmer and less likely to leak. Puff pastry is great if you prefer just a pastry lid on top of the filling.

What is another name for short crust pastry? ›

In France, this is the classic savory tart crust — great for quiche, pies and tarts. Although some pretty good pre-made options exist, nothing tastes as good as homemade pâte brisée.

Vegetable Shortening

As shortening is able to withstand higher temperatures and does not melt easily, it creates flaky and crisp yet tender pie crusts when used alone or in combination with butter.

The secret to making the best pie crust is to coat a portion of the flour with cold butter before adding in the rest of your flour. This simple step guarantees a super flaky, light pie crust.

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.

butter. You shouldn't have any issue when substituting butter for shortening here. A piecrust made with butter or margarine won't be as flaky as one made with shortening. If you're a fan of flaky, you may not want to substitute butter for shortening in piecrust.

While butter, shortening, or lard make equally light and tender crusts, an all-butter crust will be flakier due to butter's higher water content: as the crust bakes the butter melts and its water turns to steam, creating thin, crisp layers (flakes).

The process of making a flaky pastry involves “cutting” one quarter of the total fat into the flour such as a pie dough till it forms what resembles coarse meal. Proper incorporation of the fat, in this step, provides flour lubrication and restricts or at least delays its quick absorption of added water.

Use Very Cold Butter or Fat

Butter, shortening, lard, or suet—whatever fat the recipe calls for should be well-chilled and cut into small pieces to start with for the flakiest crust in the end. The fat in a pie crust must maintain some of its integrity in the dough to make the crust truly flaky.