Basic Pie and Tart Pastry Dough

Many recipes for savory tarts, such as quiches, or for dessert tarts or pies with very sweet fillings call for unsweetened pastry. And if the filling is rich you may want to use a minimum amount of butter in your crust. Traditional recipes for this basic pastry, called pâte brisée in French, call for half as much butter by weight as flour. The pastry dough is moistened with water and includes no sugar. In this recipe, you have a choice of liquids, because water activates gluten an