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

FAQs

What is the difference between shortcrust pastry and pie crust? ›

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 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. (For comparison, butter is usually about 80-85% fat, 15-20% water, whereas shortening is 100% fat.)

Much sturdier than puff, shortcrust pastry is a combined dough of flour and fat, resulting in a crumbly texture, rather than flaky. As it has a much closer crumb structure, it can be used to construct robust cases and exteriors for pies and tarts, and can stand up to both wet and dry fillings.

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

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.

The best fat for pastry-making

Unless you don't eat dairy, we recommend butter for flavour and texture. You can also try a 50/50 split between butter and lard, which works well for savoury recipes like quiches. Make sure your butter is really cold when you rub it in to the flour.

You've added too much water to the flour but not enough fat. It is important to keep the pastry cool during rolling and the oven needs to be hot.

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. Ready rolled shop-bought pastry are easy to handle and quite reliable - even professional chefs appreciate the convenience!

What is the best fat for flaky pastry? ›

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.

But there are two much more important perks to using vinegar: it provides a little insurance against overworking the dough. And, that splash of vinegar will keep your dough from oxidizing and turning gray. Fresh All-Butter Pie Dough with vinegar (right) and without (left).

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.

butter plays an essential role for producing the perfect flake During cooking, each layer of butter waterproofs the layers of pastry; the water in each layer of pastry boils off as steam and, to escape, the steam causes each layer of pastry to rise and then dry to become a fine crusty flake.

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).

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.