What is pastry? Effect of different fats(butter, margarine, pastry margarine) on quality of pastry?

Question

How do each fats affect the quality of the baked pastry?
Plain Flour 100g
Pastry Margarine 65g
Margarine 60g
Butter 60g
Salt 1/4 tsp
Water 60ml

In terms of Color, Tenderness, flakiness and flavour.

Links would be helpful! Thanks!

Answer 1

Butter provides the best result (flakiest, most flavourful) if used properly, but if misused it can produce a tough pastry, or one that is crumbly rather than flaky. The key to proper use of butter: keep it as cold as possible (similar to whipping cream; I suspect it has something to do with the effect of temperature on the viscosity of the butterfat, but I'm just a nerdy food snob, not a food scientist).

Place it in the freezer for 30 minutes, cut into small pieces, and blend into the salted flour mixture (you DO always mix your dry ingredients first, don't you?) with a pastry knife (or a knife and fork). Why? The key to flakiness is to keep consistent particles of butter mixed into the dough -- then when you bake it, those particles act like the layer of butter in the middle of a pate feuillete (the style of puff pastry used in a Napoleon).

When the mixture resembles "coarse meal" (basically, when all the butter granules are reduced to the size of a lentil or smaller), add a VERY SMALL AMOUNT of ice-cold water. I would recommend starting with 60ml of icewater in your measuring cup, but add only 10ml or so at a time, and count on using only a little more than half of it in total. Why? Warm water starts dissolving the gluten in the flour -- good for bread, bad for a flaky pastry.

The idea is to use as LITTLE water as is required to get the dough to hold together into a loose ball, THEN wrap it in plastic and refrigerate it for 30 minutes. This allows the water to moisten all the flour particles without dissolving the butter, making the dough relatively easy to handle but still giving the best results.

When it comes time to roll out the pastry, handle the pastry as little as possible -- the heat from your hands will melt those butter particles you've done so much to keep whole. Place the pastry in the desired tin or mold, bake as directed for your recipe, and admire your handiwork.

The resulting pastry should be about halfway between a top-notch commercial pie crust and a puff pastry shell (such as a Napoleon or a vol-au-vent -- NOT the "pate a choux" variety of puff pastry, such as that used in cream puffs and eclairs, which is a VERY different creature, though equally wonderful in its chosen applications).

The key is that as the butter melts it vaporizes the water left in it, and the pockets of steam cause a layer of flour to rise and crisp.

Diagnostics:

IF YOUR PASTRY IS TOUGH: You probably used too much water. Water plus flour equals wallpaper paste. I have actually used a plant-mister (food grade, of course) to spray a light mist of water on my "coarse-meal" pastry dough. Again, if you use that full 60ml with a butter crust, (or if the water is warm, allowing the butter to begin melting before you cook it), you risk making something neither entirely edible nor useful as the lining of a bulletproof vest.

IF YOUR PASTRY IS TOO PALE: Bake at a higher temperature or, if possible, add about 1 teaspoon of sugar to the dough. (Sugar caramelizes, adding to all that crispy golden-brown goodness. And a teaspoon of sugar in 100g of flour won't make the dough too sweet to use in a savory application, such as a meat pie.)

IF YOUR PASTRY IS CRUMBLY RATHER THAN FLAKY: Your butter was too warm. (There's a very nice style of crust that relies on warming the butter to soften it, but this isn't it.) In the summertime, I put the flour and the bowl in the freezer for 30 minutes, along with the butter, before making pastry.

Now... it IS possible to make a very delicious product with room-temperature butter and a little water; it comes out almost like shortbread, and is a FANTASTIC pastry to use for Italian-style ricotta cheese pie. But you won't be able to roll it, you'll need to press it into your pie tin (or better still, a springform pan). It won't be flaky, but it will crumble into something very much like a shortbread cookie when you eat it. To make this variant, allow the butter to come to room temperature (72F/21C) and use your hands to knead it into the salted (and lightly sugared) flour. You can then press this into the mold/tin as described; it's fairly plastic and easily molded, but doesn't hold together well when rolled.

As for various margarines: they're excellent for spreading on toasted muffins and even for making a nice egg butty now and then, but they don't belong in baked goods. Well, not entirely true -- if you're just learning, they're a fine way to make it easier to come up with a decent product and build your technique and your confidence. But if you want to make something GREAT, learn to use butter.

If you really want to master pastry... get the two books at the link below (they're required reading for any true food nerd anyway) and make "Le Veritable Pithiviers du Pithiviers." It is made with pate feuillete -- the "thousand layer" type of rolled puff pastry used in vol-au-vents and Napoleons -- filled with a layer of almond cream, and is absolutely delicious in its own right (as well as stunning when completed). But if you master the techniques that The Divine Julia and her mentor Simone "Simca" Beck give in this book, you can then apply this technology to standard pie, tart, and patty crusts.

Answer 2

Pastry Margarine

Answer 3

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
What is pastry? Effect of different fats(butter, margarine, pastry margarine) on quality of pastry?
How do each fats affect the quality of the baked pastry?
Plain Flour 100g
Pastry Margarine 65g
Margarine 60g
Butter 60g
Salt 1/4 tsp
Water 60ml

In terms of Color, Tenderness, flakiness and...

Answer 4

pastry effect fatsbutter margarine pastry margarine quality pastry