This paté brisée recipe is one of the basic French recipes for what most of us call the short crust pastry. Paté brisée is often a good choice of pastry to use when making tarts with fruit that has a very juicy nature, such as plums. It is also one of the most popular French pastries for making savory tarts and quiches.
Learn how to make the best pastry dough with my help like a real chef!
Short crust pastry has very few and simple ingredients:
- flour, low starch if available
- fat, shortening, butter, or lard
- a little sugar
- a little salt
- water
In many baking ventures, good results can be increased by letting all the ingredients come to room temperature.
But for excellent pastry, working with cold butter creates a lighter and flakier crust.
Also, working quickly (which comes with practice) so the dough does not warm up too much is important too.
This recipe will make enough for a 9-inch pie or tart or for ten 3-inch tartlets.
More French Pastry Recipes
📖 Recipe
Prep Like a Pro
Before you start cooking, chop, measure, and prep every ingredient, and gather your tools.
This simple habit reduces stress, prevents overcooking, and instantly improves your meals. Mise en Place - "Everything in its place."
Paté Brisée
Ingredients
- 2 cups of all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon fine sugar
- ¾ cup butter chilled, cut into small pieces
- 4 tablespoon vegetable shortening. chilled
- ½ cup iced water
Instructions
- Place the flour, salt, sugar, butter, and vegetable shortening into a large bowl.
- Rub the flour and fat together very quickly until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
- Add the water and blend quickly until you have the mix into a ball of dough. You may need a few drops of extra water to pick it all up, however, do not over do it or the pastry will be hard.
- At this stage the French do what is called a "fraisage", or the final blending.
- Place the pastry dough on the floured board and using the heel of the hand, press the pastry down and away from you, 2 times.
- Gather the pastry back into a ball with a scraper and place into a waxed bag or polythene bag which has been lightly dusted with flour.
- Place the dough in the refrigerator for about 2 hours.
- If you prefer, you can make your paté brisée recipe ahead of time and keep it in the refrigerator until ready to use.
- When rolling out your pastry do this quickly so that the fat does not soften. It is very difficult to handle when this happens. However, if this does happen, just press it to fit into the tin and even though it may not look professional, it will still taste wonderful.
- Just don't worry, you will soon learn the technique!
Notes
- As with all pastry preparation, it is important to keep the ingredients cool. If the kitchen is too warm, the fat will melt into the flour, and you will lose that flaky, tender crust.
- Follow my guidance on how to make pastry dough for good success. It is all in technique and, as always, good quality fresh ingredients.
Lynda Mayenschein says
I have beeing scouring the google for this information and simply needed to thank you for the post BTW, simply off topic, how can I get a duplicate of this theme? – Thanks
Judith Coates says
Hi Lynda, I am happy that my Paté Brisée Recipe is helpful to you and thank you for letting me know! I am with Feast+ for my theme (which is much more than a simple theme) and love it! There is a link at the bottom of my site on every page. All my best!