Understanding Food

Chapter 26:
Pies and Pastries

Types of Pastry
All pastries fall into one of
two basic types:
Plain pastry
Puff pastry

Types of Pastry
Plain pastry: Pastry made for
producing pie crusts, quiches, and
main-dish pies.
Puff pastry: A delicate pastry that
puffs up in size during baking due to
numerous alternating layers of fat
and flour.

Types of Pastry
There are a wide
assortment of puff
pastry variations,
including:
Blitz or quick
puff pastry
Strudel
French pastries

Phyllo (fee-low)
Danish pastries
Pte choux
(pot-a-shoe)

Preparation of Pastry
Ingredients of Pastry
Most pastry flour mixtures
usually contain at least four
ingredients:

Flour
Fat
Liquid
Salt

Preparation of Pastry
Tenderness
Glutenconcentration
and
distribution

Flakiness
Fat
Cold
Plastic, firm
Water
Temperature

Preparation of Pastry

Preparation of Pastry

Flaky Crust

Preparation of Pastry
F I G U R E 2 6 - 5 Mixing pastry ingredients.

Preparation of Pastry

Rolling:
Both plain and puff pastry dough
must be rolled

Lamination: The arrangement of

alternating layers of fat and flour
in rolled pastry dough.

Preparation of Pastry
For plain
pastry, the
dough is rolled
out in a circle
1 to 2 inches
larger than the
bottom of the
pan.

Preparation of Pastry
A top crust is placed over the
filling using the wedge
procedure, or by lifting the wax
paper and dough together, gently
turning it over onto the filling,
and slowly peeling off the wax
paper.
Streusel topping

(For additional suggestions

refer to p. 463)

Preparation of Pastry

To avoid a soggy bottom

crust
fully thicken the filling
before adding it into the pie
shell.
prebake the bottom crust.
Prepare mealy crust.

Preparation of Pastry
Puff pastry relies on first folding
the fat block and dough together
before rolling.
Repeated folding creates
numerous layers of alternating
fat and dough.
These numerous folds contribute
to the puffing up that occurs when
the steam generated during baking
forces the layers apart.

Preparation of Pastry
Baking
Whether using a conventional oven,
convection oven, or microwave oven
type of pan
temperature
method of testing for doneness

Blind bake: To bake an unfilled

pie crust.

Storage of Pastry
Pastries are best consumed while
fresh

Pastry doughs freeze up to six

months.
Unbaked pies will last about four
months in the freezer, while baked
berry pies can be frozen for six to
eight months.