Introduction

Mention pastry and visions of light, thin, golden crusts filled with fresh fruits, satiny creams and nut-studded mixtures come to mind. In a sense, pastrymaking is the art of making containers for different fillings: The type of dough you make will depend on the texture of the container you want. Pastry doughs, which bakers also call pastes, can be either stiff or soft. They are classified according to the proportion of liquid to flour they contain. Doughs are higher in fat and lower in liquid than a cake batter. All pastry doughs have three common ingredients: flour, fat and liquid.