Pastry Wars : Tart Dough

Or pie crust if you like. I know that the American pie crusts tend to be very different from the tender pate sablee that goes into the French tart, but all I am trying to do here is figure out one perfectly crispy, flaky dough. After all, there are too many things to sort out already without getting into the pie versus tart debate:

- Should you use all butter or butter + lard? Or butter + shortening
- Food processor? I don't have one so that debate is out - we are making the dough by hand
- Butter the size of peas? Large beans? Breadcrumbs? Or everything in between?
- Or should you just ditch cutting the butter and grate it instead.

Gosh! There is so much to pick from. Thankfully, some things are a given. No matter what you do, you are looking for a dough that isn't mishandled too much, and has specks of butter left to rise into flaky crust. And the dough likes cold, so prepare for several rounds of chilling.

I read books and blogs and recipes, then picked the most recent addition to pie crust recipes I'd spotted - Melissa Clark with a jazzy video on NY Times.

Since I don't have a food processor and I wasn't prepared to grate butter as Mr. Audax recommends, I took out 70 grams of butter out of the fridge and cut it into 1 cm squares. These went into the freezer for 15 minutes. I then mixed 3/4 cup flour with a tbsp of sugar and these went into the freezer too. Also in the freezer, 1/2 cup chilled water so it becomes ice cold.

15 minutes on, I brought out the flour and added the almost frozen butter to the bowl. I rubbed the butter in until most squares were half the size from where they started, but we still have fairly large butter chunks. Added iced water 1 tbsp at a time until the dough came together (I needed 3 tbsp).

I have a 3 inch tart pan so I only needed half the recipe. I split the dough in two parts, wrapped each in its own cling wrap and popped it in the fridge for an hour. Once the dough was chilled, I took it out and rolled it as thin as I could, flouring it along the way.

I lined my tart pan with the rolled dough, cutting off all the dough hanging at the edges with a knife. Back in the fridge for half an hour to chill. Then I covered the tart with foil and filled it up with dried beans. Baked in a 200C oven for 25 minutes, then took off the foil and baked for another 10-15 minutes until I got a golden crust.

It's flaky, it's crusty, it's delicious! Is it perfect? Not at all. I had a major problem with the crust - it shrank. The sides were less than half the height from where they started. I filled it with pastry cream and arranged some kiwi balls all around so it looks pretty but this one really won't do. The quest for our perfect tart dough continues!