If you have a sweet tooth that’s simply insatiable, you probably don’t like to choose favourites when it comes to dessert. Cakes, ice creams, waffles, you name it – each and every one of those desserts deserve a special place at the dining table. However, if you’re one that not only has a sweet tooth, but also has constant salty cravings, there’s only one thing that can satisfy both taste cravings: pastries.
Whilst pastry dough is notoriously difficult to master, it’s definitely worth trying, especially to satiate both your salty and sweet cravings. Make your kitchen smell like boulangerie with these few tips!
The Different Types Of Pastry Dough
To make the perfect pastry dough, you’ll need to get the fundamentals right. All pastry doughs, no matter what type they are, comprise flour, water and fat (butter, shortening, lard and even oil). With these main ingredients, all variations of pastry dough can be created. By using different ratios of ingredients along with different methods of forming the dough, you can produce different textures and outcomes. Discover the 5 typical kinds of pastry dough used in baking down below!
1. Flaky Pastry
Flaky pastry, used for sweet and savoury pies, quiche, sausage rolls and turnovers, is the most rustic and simplest of all the pastry doughs. This type of pastry benefits from gentle handwork and pea-sized chunks of butter, and whilst this means you can opt for a hands-off attitude, it also means you’ll need to employ delicate work as this will make or break your pastry texture. Overworking this dough gives tough and crumbly pastry, which is undesirable in a homemade pie.
2. Shortcrust Pastry
A much more forgiving variety of pastry, the shortcrust pastry is resilient even in the face of overworking. Since it’s more cohesive than flaky pastry, the dough will bounce back almost entirely with little to no finger indentation even when overworked. Being sweet and sturdy, this dough is virtually akin to that of a shortbread cookie dough.
3. Puff Pastry
Often used for pie crusts, wrapping for meats, as well as vol-au-vents and mille feuilles, this pastry is characterised by air and fat that’s trapped between the layers of dough. This gives rise to its emblematic delicate and crisp texture and appearance. Despite being time-consuming, this pastry is still often considered as the go-to pastry by hobby bakers and pastry chefs alike.
4. Choux Pastry
Otherwise known as pâte à choux, the choux pastry is characterised by a crispy outer shell and a hollow interior that can be filled with a variety of fillings. One can get such a texture by beating the batter on the stovetop till it forms a dense and thick consistency. This allows the batter to trap steam when it’s released in the oven, creating the puff pastry everybody knows and loves.
5. Filo Pastry
Produced in very thin sheets, filo pastry dough is used as a wrapping for numerous delicate sweet and savoury dishes such as the börek and baklava.
These fundamentals are crucial when making the perfect baked treats. At Polar Puffs & Cakes, we have spent decades perfecting these fundamentals, and more! Our pastries and puffs are baked to perfection, giving you the rich buttery notes, along with the perfect balance of sweet and salty, and lastly, the flaky texture that adds to the subtle crunch.
The best part? You can have all of these in the comfort of your home, with our online pastry delivery! Skip the hassle of going to any of our outlets! Simply order your pastries online and wait for your treats to be delivered to your doorstep.
