Overworking

Be careful not to overwork the pastry dough. Many of the techniques for making and rolling out pastry dough are designed to avoid activating the gluten in the flour by working the dough as little as possible. Fortunately, gluten that has been activated will be deactivated when the pastry dough is kept cold and allowed to relax. So, if your dough shrinks as you try to roll it out, put it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes and try again. As long as the pastry dough is kept cold, it can tolerate some overworking. The freezer is excellent for chilling pastry dough quickly, but keep in mind that it doesn’t relax when frozen—freezing suspends the deactivation of the gluten.