All Purpose Pie Dough Pâte Brisée Fine Recipes

PATE BRISEE (PIE DOUGH)

Steps:

• In the bowl of a food processor, combine flour, salt, and sugar. Add butter, and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal, 8 to 10 seconds.
• With machine running, add ice water in a slow, steady stream through feed tube. Pulse until dough holds together without being wet or sticky; be careful not to process more than 30 seconds. To test, squeeze a small amount together: If it is crumbly, add more ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time.
• Divide dough into two equal balls. Flatten each ball into a disc and wrap in plastic. Transfer to the refrigerator and chill at least 1 hour. Dough may be stored, frozen, up to 1 month.

PATE BRISEE (FRENCH SHORTCRUST)

Steps:

• Place flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor and pulse 3 or 4 times to mix. Add cubed butter; pulse until crumbly.
• Pour slow stream of ice water through feed tube while the processor is on low speed until dough holds together when pinched, making sure not to add too much.
• Divide dough evenly into 2 pieces. Form dough into discs on a lightly floured work surface. Wrap discs with wax paper or parchment paper before wrapping with plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or until use.
• Roll dough out on a lightly floured work surface using a lightly floured rolling pin between 2 pieces of parchment paper to desired thickness when ready to use.
• Butter two 9-inch tart pans. Roll crusts 1 at a time onto the rolling pin and unroll over tart pans. Gently push dough into the prepared pans, molding to the sides. Trim edges with fingers or a knife. Fill and bake according to filling recipe instructions.

ALL-PURPOSE PIE DOUGH

Steps:

• Using your fingertips or the pulse function of a food processor, blend together the flour, fats and salt until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. There should be pebbles of butter throughout the mixture.
• Add egg yolk and vinegar to 1/4 cup ice water and stir to combine. Drizzle 4 tablespoons of this mixture over the dough and gently stir or pulse to combine. Gather a golfball-size bit of dough and squeeze to combine. If it does not hold together, add a little more of the liquid and stir or pulse, then check again. Repeat as necessary.
• Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gather together into a rough ball. You want to be careful not to overwork the flour, but not too careful; the dough should hold together. Divide the ball in half with a knife or a pastry scraper, then divide each portion in half again, and again, to create eight portions. Using the heel of your hand, flatten each portion of dough once or twice to expand the pebbles of butter, then gather the dough together again in one ball. Divide this ball in half.
• Flatten each ball into a 5- or 6-inch disc and dust lightly with flour. Wrap the discs in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 60 minutes.

ALL-PURPOSE PIE DOUGH-PâTE BRISéE FINE

Steps:

• Drop the flours, salt, and butter in to the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Pulse 5 or 6 times in 1/2-second bursts to break up the butter. Then add the shortening, turn on the machine, and immediately pour in the ice water, pulsing 2 or 3 times. Remove cover and observe the dough, which will look like a mass of smallish lumps and should just hold in a mass when a handful is pressed together. If too dry, pulse in droplets more water.
• Turn dough out onto your work surface, and with the heel of your hand rapidly and roughly push egg-size blobs out in front of you in 6-inch smears. Gather the dough into a relatively smooth cake; wrap in plastic, and refrigerate at least 2 hours (or up to 2 days), or you may freeze it for several months.
• SWEET DOUGH FOR DESSERT TARTS. Use the same formula, but cut the salt down to 1/4 teaspoon and include 2 tablespoons sugar.
• Dough with a high fat content like this one softens quickly at room temperature and becomes difficult if not impossible to work with. Whenever this happens to you, stop where you are and refrigerate it for 20 minutes. To make things easier for me, I bought a marble slab that now lives in the refrigerator; I take out that chilled slab and use it as a work surface any time I'm doing a dough.
• Bake your tart shell in a bottomless buttered flan ring set on a buttered pastry sheet, or in a false-bottomed cake pan or fluted pan, or on a buttered upside-down pie plate or cake pan. Or you can fashion a free-form shell on a buttered pastry sheet.