Table of Contents
Types of Pastry
Shortcrust Pastry
Shortcrust pastry – is a type of pastry often used for the base of a tart, quiche or pie. It does not puff up during baking because it usually contains no leavening agent. It is possible to make shortcrust pastry with self-raising flour, however. Shortcrust pastry can be used to make both sweet and savory pies such as apple pie, quiche, lemon meringue or chicken pie
Puff pastry or laminated
In baking, a puff pastry is a light, flaky, leavened pastry containing several layers of fat which is in solid-state at 20 °C (68 °F). In raw form, puff pastry is a dough which is spread with solid fat and repeatedly folded and rolled out (never mashed, as this will destroy layering) and used to produce the aforementioned pastries. It is sometimes called a “water dough” or détrempe.
Choux pastry
Choux pastry or pâte à choux is a light pastry dough used to make profiteroles, croquembouches,éclairs, French crullers, beignets, St. Honoré cake, Indonesian Kue sus, and gougères. It contains only butter, water, flour, and eggs. Like Yorkshire Pudding or David Eyre’s pancake, instead of an araising agent, it employs high moisture content to create steam during cooking to puff the pastry.
Choux pastry is usually baked but for beignets, it is fried.
Definitions
- Pastry: A type of food in famous dishes like pie and strudel.
- Pastry bag or Piping bag: An often cone-shaped bag that is used to make an even stream of dough, frosting, or flavored substance to form a structure, decorate a baked good, or fill a pastry with custard, cream, jelly, or another filling.
- Pastry board: A square or oblong board, preferably marble but usually wood, on which pastry is rolled out.
- Pastry brake: Opposed and counter-rotating rollers with a variable gap through which pastry can be worked and reduced in thickness for commercial production. A small version is used domestically for pasta production.
- Pastry case: An uncooked or blind-baked pastry container used to hold savory or sweet mixtures.
- Pastry cream: Confectioner’s custard. An egg- and flour-thickened custard made with sweetened milk flavored with vanilla. Used as a filling for flans, cakes, pastries, tarts, etc. The flour prevents the egg from curdling.
- Pastry cutters: Various metal or plastic outlines of shapes, e.g. circles, fluted circles, diamonds, gingerbread men, etc., sharpened on one edge and used to cut out corresponding shapes from biscuit, scone, pastry, or cake mixtures.
- Pastry blender: A kitchen implement used to properly combine the fat and flour. Usually constructed of wire or plastic, with multiple wires or small blades connected to a handle.
- Viennoiserie: French term for “Viennese pastry,” which, although technically must be yeast-raised, has now become used as a common term for many laminated and puff- and choux-based pastries, including croissants, brioche, and pain au chocolat.
Flour
Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, or other seeds or roots (like Cassava). It is the main ingredient of bread
