Pastry Basics and the different kind of pastry around you...

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They are rich, flaky, buttery, and delicious no wonder it is loved by a lot of people around the world. So what is a pastry dough? well its basically a combination of flour, varying amount of butter, liquid(water), and a myriad technique of mixing the ingredients resulting into different kinds of pastry doughs. The butter/fat that is used in a pastry dough is the one that lends its flakiness and delicateness to the finest product(the so called pastries). Some people find it rather scary and intimidating to do a pastry at home, I don't blame them the first time i did it I overworked the dough and end up to a tough,dense,hard finish product.Probably the most easiest to make is the "Pate a Choux" or Choux(shoee) pastry used for eclairs,cream puffs, and st. Honore cake. So what are the different types of pastries? well there are a lot but they all come from 6 types of pastry doughs they are the pate brisee, pate sablee, pate feuilletee,yeasted pate feuilletee, pate a filo, pate a choux. so lets start with ... Pate brisee or the so called traditional pie crust,sometimes called short pastry crust this is made of butter,flour,and salt.The butter is cut into the flour using two knifes or a pastry cutter until the mixture resemble a coarse crumb then water is added, set in the fridge and is ready to be used.The best example for this is apple pie. Pate sablee is actually the same with pate brisee the only difference is that sablee has a sugar on it and sometimes called sweet pie crust. Pate feuilletee or puff pastry it is the most technical and difficult to make among all kinds of pastry requiring preciseness and timing to create layers of dough and butter by using the technique called "laminating". A puff pastry consists of a normal dough unleavened that didn't undergo kneading (consists of flour,water,salt) and is laminated with butter and fold and rolled 4 times creating 81 layers for normal feuilletee and 107 for fine layered feuilletee. Yeasted pate feuilletee is the same with puff pastry the only difference is that it has yeast on it or leavened, pastries that is made using this dough are croissant, pain au chocolat, pan aux raisin, and all sorts of viennoiseries. Pate a filo or phyllo pastry, common in north African cuisine(there sweets e.g baklava) and middle eastern cuisine.Also considered to be difficult if your going to make them at home.It uses a dough like in a pate feuilletee the difference is that the dough is kneaded properly to create the "window pane" stage of the dough because you will strech the dough until its paper thin and brushed with clarified butter, nuts and sugar is added to make baklava or pastry cream and sour cherry is added to make strudels. Pate a choux or choux pastry the most easy to make requires a little effort and results are divine.This eggy dough is made by melting a block of butter into a simmering water and flour is added, mixed and formed into a huge ball and eggs are added after it has cooled down.It is usually piped and baked to create eclairs,cream puffs, croquembouche and other wonderful creations from it. I hope you enjoy reading and appreciate the pastries around you have a great day everyone and happy pastry eating!