Pastry
Sweet pastry is fragile because sugar and yolk are working against the flour
Pâte sucrée tears, cracks and crumbles during handling, and every one of those behaviours is a direct consequence of what makes it…
Pastry
Laminating, shortcrust, choux and keeping butter where it belongs.
21 articles · updated August 11, 2026 · page 2 of 2
Pastry
Flaky and short are opposite textures built from the same three ingredients
Flour, fat and water make both, and the only real difference is how large the pieces of fat were when the water arrived.
Pastry
Melting point is the property that decides which fat suits which pastry
Butter, lard, suet and shortening are not interchangeable, and the reason has less to do with flavour than with the temperature at…
Pastry
The liquid in pastry is a compromise you make on purpose
Water is what turns crumbs into a dough and also what turns a tender crust into a leathery one, which is why pastry recipes are so…
Pastry
A laminated yeast dough is fermenting and layering at the same time
Croissants and Danish pastries ask one dough to do two jobs whose ideal conditions directly contradict each other, which is why the…
Pastry
How much egg a choux paste takes is decided by the pan, not the recipe
Two cooks following the same instructions end up with different quantities of egg, because what evaporated during the first cook…
Pastry
Thickening a fruit pie is a starch problem with three different answers
Cornflour, plain flour and tapioca all set the juices, and they set at different temperatures, clear to different degrees and…
Pastry
An egg wash is three different finishes depending on what you dilute it with
Whole egg, yolk and white each brown, shine and set differently, and the liquid you thin them with changes the result again.
Pastry
Every dusting of flour changes the pastry you wrote down
Rolling flour is an ingredient nobody measures, and a dough that has picked up a great deal of it is no longer the recipe you…