Cooking tips
Homemade Pie Crust (Pâte Brisée): The Recipe You'll Keep Making
Store-bought dough is soft, greasy and sticks to everything. A homemade pâte brisée takes 10 minutes, holds up better in the oven, and costs a third as much.
For a long time I thought homemade pâte brisée (French shortcrust, the everyday pie and tart dough) was for people with spare time. Then I timed it: 10 minutes of prep, 30 minutes of rest in the fridge, and a dough that holds up far better in the oven than any store-bought version. The only real difficulty is not overworking it.
The ingredients, in this order
About 9 oz (250 g) of T55 flour (French all-purpose, closest to US all-purpose; not T45, the finer pastry-style flour, because T55 is less elastic and gives a shorter dough, which is what you want), 4 1/2 oz (125 g) cold butter cut into 1/2-inch (1 cm) cubes, 1 pinch of salt, 3 to 5 tablespoons of very cold water. That's all. For a sweet dough, add 1 oz (30 g) of powdered sugar and an egg yolk, and take out one spoonful of water.
Enemy number one: heat
Pâte brisée has to stay cold throughout. If the butter melts into the flour before it's worked in, you get a sticky, elastic dough, not at all what you want. In summer, put the flour and the bowl in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before you start. Work fast with your fingertips, not the palm of your hand.
The sanding technique
Put the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the cold butter cubes. With your fingertips, press the butter into the flour, rubbing quickly. The goal is a texture like coarse sand, with pea-size pieces of butter still visible in the flour. Those little pieces create the flaky layers as it bakes. If you keep going until you have a uniform powder, you've overworked it: the dough will be tough and crumbly.
Add the very cold water a spoonful at a time, mixing with a fork and then with your hand, just enough for the dough to come together. It should hold in a ball when you press it, not be smooth. If it still sticks, add a spoonful of flour. If it crumbles, add a spoonful of water.
The rest: required, not optional
Flatten the ball into a disk, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least 30 minutes. The rest relaxes the gluten developed while you worked the dough and lets the butter chill evenly. A rested dough rolls out much more easily and doesn't shrink as it bakes. Skip this step and your tart shell will shrink in the oven.
Rolling out and blind baking
On a lightly floured counter, roll from the center outward, turning the dough a quarter turn between each pass of the rolling pin. Target thickness: 1/8 inch (3 mm). Transfer to the pan without stretching. Press gently into the corners. Prick the bottom with a fork.
For any tart with a wet filling (quiche, fruit, custard): blind bake first. Cover the bottom with parchment paper, fill with dried beans, and bake 15 minutes at 350°F (180°C). Remove the paper and weights and bake another 5 minutes to dry out the bottom. Without this step, the filling will soak the crust.
A well-made, blind-baked crust keeps 2 days at room temperature in the pan under a dish towel, or it freezes raw or baked. If you make tarts regularly, double the quantities and freeze a disk for next time.
