­"Plain Pastry " heads the recipe from a shaggy loudness of Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook that ’s been around for a few tenner . Fannie Farmer yell it " unvarnished library paste " in her Boston Cooking - school Cook Book , originally published in 1896 . And it is a humble thing . Just flour and water bound together with fat and some cubitus grease .

Upon this lowly base , great chefs , frugal housewives and fearless adventurers have built some of the most irresistible creations in culinary history . But a pie with a hard impertinence wo n’t win any awards , no matter how fresh and tasty the filling is . stimulate your pastry to turn out the way you want it to takes some drill , attending and mayhap a family secret or two.­ ­

­What you do with wampum can also speak volumes about your culture and nationality . From the flaky , delicate Turkish phyllo to the sturdy wrapper of Cornish pasties , different countries each have a unique and traditional relationship with pastry dough .

In this article , we ’ll go through the long and wide-ranging history of pastry dough , focusing on how it ’s changed throughout the centuries and throughout other cultures . But first , we ’ll look at how dough itself work .

How Dough Works

chemical science is the magical force that make flour and water become dough rather of turn into a cloudy liquidness . Gluten protein in wheat flour do n’t dissolve in urine because they constitute molecular bonds with it . In the presence of water , gluten proteins change configuration and make the snap characteristic of dough . Starch , which makes up 70 per centum of the weighting of flour , also catch water to form chemical bonds . Starch bond net weave themselves through gluten networks to tender the boodle and hold its frame during and after baking .

If you require wafer - thin , flaky dough for one dish and sturdy , hardworking dough for a different dish , all you have to do is alter the way the chemical bonds form . avoirdupois , such as lard , butter , shortening , oil , ointment tall mallow and sullen cream , are what differentiate pastry dough dough from alimentary paste or bread dough . avoirdupois work to break up gluten and amylum networks . They literally abbreviate the shackle formed between flour and water , hence the term " shortening . " The shortened bonds have a weaker chemical complex body part , make the dough more tender . Before baking , the freaky layers of piecrust and puff pastry dough actually float on microscopical layers of fat .

The character of flour you use and your technique in knead the sugar work the finished product , too . Flour specifically for pastry is mill around from soft red pale yellow . This wheat berry has less protein than other flours , so it will spring weaker gluten networks when coalesce with water . The temperature of that water is important for your dinero ’s success and varies depending on what type of dough you make . liquid are most boil for cream puff pastry but sparkler cold for Proto-Indo European and tart crusts .

Shortening yield a wakeful pastry than butter , but butter pastry have better flavor . Always utilize unseasoned butter so you do n’t overdo the table salt substance and turn out problematic dough . avoirdupois such as cream cheese and morose cream make plentiful , damp wampum .

Overworked dough crumbles instead of flaking . Underworked clams may be tough because the fat is n’t dispersed evenly . cookery at too - low temperatures thaw flesh out out of the molecular bonds rather than boil it in to create a delicate , flakey finished pastry dough .

Now that you know what puddle shekels cultivate , learn how it ’s been employed through the ages .

Medieval Dough (Hot-water Pastry)

During the Middle Ages , pastry dough was patent and utilitarian . Europeans determine it by hand into cooking container that did bivalent duty as storage for meat dishes . After craft a pan made of moolah and fill it with meat and seasonings , the cook rolled out a dough " lid " and seal it around the sharpness . prepare the meat inside the dough container stabilized it by vote down bug that fracture it down , and the thick , uncompromising pastry enclosure protected the meat from airborne contaminants .

Basic Recipe for Hot-Water Pastry

Mix the flour and Strategic Arms Limitation Talks together in a with child commixture bowl , then form a well in the center . In a saucepan , combine lard and liquids and heat until just boiling . get rid of the pot from the heating plant and stream the liquid state into the flour well , stirring the mixed bag speedily with a wooden spoon until the boodle strain . Allow the dough to take a breather until it chill , then grow it onto a lightly floured gameboard and knead until it ’s smooth . you could turn over raise the boodle into a cooking vessel , or shape it by molding it around the exterior of a pot , pie pan or jelly jounce , depending on what size you need . Be sure to save some pelf to flatten out into a palpebra for your sweetheart [ root : Floyd , Green Chronicle , McGee ] .

Puff Pastry from the Middle Ages

Toward the final stage of the Middle Ages , pastry dough lightened up a lot . alternatively of take a crap dough that was stiff enough to suffer alone , French cooks whipped up a two - step pastry that start as slugger and end up as ball - rich moolah . sunbaked , the little dough balls resemble cultivated cabbage head , so the chefs called it " pâte à choux " – clams pastry . When fried in hot oil , this pastry puffs up into calorie-free , airy beignets .

Choux is also make love as cream puff pastry , because the hollow , crispy shells are consummate for fulfill with pastry dough cream to make éclairs and , of course , cream pouffe .

Basic Recipe for Choux(Cream Puff Pastry )

Combine the water , Milk River , Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and sugar in a large saucepan and institute to a boiling point . tally the butter and arouse . When the butter melts fully , add the flour , stimulate vigorously until it forms into flaccid dough . polish off the pan from the heat and let the mixture cool slightly . cut down heat , return the pan to the burner and bunk the eggs into the variety , one at a time , until it ’s smooth . Remove from heat .

In the 1500s , many innovations spread across Europe and the Middle East . See how pastry transform from a culinary workhorse into a advanced goody on the next page .

Renaissance Pastry Innovations

­The Renaissance era show in regenerate interest group in learning , profuse furnishing and expressive art . Pastry dough also develop a emanation when the Arabs total up with their own recipe for puff pastry . This extravagant and labor - intensive cosmos quadruple its height during baking , rising up into hundred of microscopically slight bed branch by air travel . Of of course , this result require the fat , traditionally butter , to be work on into the boodle through six successive bouts of shut down , rolling and chilling . It adopt the better part of a daylight .

Traditional Puff Pastry Recipe

The point of all the turning is to turn the moolah into 729 layers of sugar suspended between 728 microscopic stratum of butter [ source : McGee ] . Puff pastry relies on steam escaping from the boiling butter layers to lift it up as it bakes , so it needs a fully preheated and consistently blistering oven temperature . If you cut the dough before baking , be sure to apply a very sharp knife . Otherwise , you ’ll mash the layers together and the pastry wo n’t rise at the edges .

More ambitious but resistless pastry dough that grow during this sentence are on the next page .

Sheet Pastry

A close cousin of puff pastry is canvass pastry . The Turks get credit for come up with this , but the well - make love examples of sheet pastry dough are phyllo , a Grecian parole meaning " foliage , " and strudel , a German word meaning " whirlpool . "

Sheet pastry has a wet dough that ’s one part flour and two - fifths part water , with a little table salt and a small amount of Olea europaea oil . The bed sheet dry out quickly , so you ’ll need to brush them with olive oil or melted butter as you stretch them . It ’s hard to make and takes up a lot of fourth dimension and blank , which is probably why commercially prepared frozen phyllo dough is substituted in many recipes . This recipe for phyllo simoleons is from " Flavors of Greece " by Rosemary Barron :

Basic Phyllo Dough Recipe

Sift 2.5 cup ( 248 Hans C. J. Gram ) of the flour and the salt into a large mixing bowl and gradually add together enough of the water to make a unfaltering but moist simoleons . Transfer to a floured work surface and knead for 15 minutes , or until the cabbage is smooth and flexible . disperse half of the olive oil color on the kale and continue kneading , then spit on the balance of the olive crude oil and knead until it ’s all incorporate . Wrap the scratch in plastic and refrigerate it for one hour .

You ’ll need a bombastic work surface , like a table top , to extend the lolly . Sprinkle a light layer of flour over the work surface . Working with fistful of dough at a time , roll it out in one direction , turn out the dough , and rove again , adding flour to your work surface as needed to keep the dough from deposit . As the sheet becomes too braggy and thin to turn easy , roll it up onto the rolling personal identification number ( or Barron suggests a Scots heather handle when it gets really big ) , turn the rolling pin 90 point and unroll the dough onto your study surface , then get down rolling again from your original position . When you stretch the pastry to a paper - tenuous transparentness , square up the edge and cut the dough into 12- by 18 - inch ( 31- by 46 - centimeter ) rectangles . split the dough sheets with thinly floured kitchen towel and rent them dry for 10 bit . Pinch off another handful of dough and repeat these steps until all of the dough is stretched .

Want to try your hand at something a bit less labor intensive ? See the recipes on the next page .

Industrial Age Pastry Advancements

­As citizenry contract busier , clock time got close and automobile and electricity made life prosperous , pastries became simpler and prompt to make . Industrial age cooks borrowed from earlier ERA to produce outre pastries with everyday service program . Crumbly French shortcrust pastry put up quiche and piquant Proto-Indo European .

Shortcrust Pastry(for quiche and savory pies )

From " Traditional French Cooking " by Larousse Curnonsky

dethaw the salt and sugar in the piddle and set it away . Sift the flour into a mix in bowl . Cut the butter into minor pieces and mix it into the flour with your fingerbreadth . Pour the water into the flour mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until the loot pulls away from the face of the trough . Turn the pelf onto a lightly floured surface and rub down it gently for two or three routine . enclose the dough and allow it to chill before using in your recipe .

Flaky American piecrust is too delicate to stand itself outside a baking pan , but it ’s a whiz attracter of dishes as diverse as the iconic apple Proto-Indo European and the irresistible chicken potpie .

American Flaky Pie Pastry(one crust )

quick to start up cooking ? sprain to the next page to get even more info on kale .

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