Shortcrust Pastry (Pate Brisée)
Pâte brisée is crisp, buttery, and just neutral enough to work with almost anything, from sweet tarts, savoury quiches, to tartlets and tourtes. It takes about ten minutes to make. The technique matters more than the recipe, and once you've got it, you've got it for life.
Ingredients
- 200 gr plain flour
- 100 gr unsalted butter
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 pinch salt
- 30 ml water
Equipment
Instructions
1. Sable the butter and flour
- Put the flour and salt into a large bowl. Add the cold cubed butter. Using your fingertips (not your palms) rub the butter into the flour in short, quick movements, lifting the mixture as you go to keep it cool. You're looking for a texture like coarse, slightly clumped sand, with no visible chunks of butter remaining. Work quickly. The whole process should take no more than two or three minutes. If your kitchen is warm, chill the bowl beforehand.
2. Add the egg yolk and water
- Make a well in the centre of the sandy mixture. Add the egg yolk and 20ml of cold water. Using a fork or your fingertips, bring the dough together from the outside in, mixing lightly until it just starts to hold. Add a splash more water if needed (a teaspoon at a time)but the dough should be on the dry side rather than sticky. Stop as soon as it comes together.
3. Fraise the dough
- Turn the dough out onto a working surface. Using the palm of your hand, push the dough away from you in one firm, short smear. Gather it back together and repeat once more. This technique, which is called "fraisage", makes the dough homogeneous without developing the gluten. Two times is enough. More than that and you're overworking it.
4. Rest the pastry
- Flatten the dough into a disc about 2cm thick, wrap in cling film, and refrigerate for at least one hour. This is not optional. The resting period relaxes the gluten, which has been activated slightly even with minimal working, and firms the butter back up. Both are essential for pastry that doesn't shrink when it bakes.
5. Roll and use
- On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to around 3mm thick, turning it a quarter turn after each roll to keep it even and stop it sticking. Use immediately to line your tin or rings. Once lined, chill again for 30 minutes before blind baking.
Notes
- Cold butter is the single most important factor. If your hands are warm, run them under cold water and dry them before you start. If the butter starts to feel greasy at any point during the sablage, put the bowl in the fridge for five minutes and start again.
- The fraisage step is what separates this from simply pressing the dough into a ball. It takes ten seconds and makes a real difference to the finished texture.
- Pâte brisée freezes well. Wrap the disc tightly in cling film and freeze for up to a month. Defrost overnight in the fridge.
- For a lightly sweet version (to use with fruit tarts or sweet fillings) add 15g of icing sugar to the flour at the start. This is the sucrée variation on the same base recipe.
- T55 flour is the standard French patisserie flour. It has a slightly lower protein content than other plain flour, which means even less gluten development. Worth using if you can find it, but not essential.