Pastries

The enormous variety of pastries, from napoleons to croissants to turnovers, comes from manipulating butter, flour, eggs, and often sugar using different techniques. The secret to the best pastry is butter. Pastries made from shortening or margarine may look as nice—sometimes they even look better—but they will never have the taste of butter-based pastry.

As you practice making basic pastries, you will start to recognize that flour behaves differently from brand to brand. Flour from the South tends to contain less gluten than other flours and will absorb less liquid. The recipes included here work with everyday all-purpose flour. If you are using southern flour, you will find you need less liquid, and in fact that certain kinds of dough, such as puff pastry, will roll out easier.