Sugar

The texture of the crust is affected by the sugar—making it delightfully brittle—and because pastry dough containing sugar absorbs slightly less liquid, it may affect the amount of liquid you need to include. While sugar may make the dough sticky, it makes pastry that’s more delicate and more resilient because it interferes with gluten development. Because of this, you can get by working sweetened pastry dough much more than unsweetened pastry.