French pastry doughs

If there’s one thing the French get right, it’s their pastries. Before I lived in France, I thought pastry was impossible to make yourself. Always grabbed the ready-made stuff, convinced homemade dough required skills I didn’t have.

Then one day I was in my neighbour’s kitchen while she was cooking, and she started making what looked like pastry. Just chatting away while her hands worked butter into flour, no recipe book in sight, barely even looking at what she was doing. “What’s that?” I asked. “Pâte brisée. For a quiche.” She said it like it was nothing. Five minutes of rubbing butter into flour while telling me about her week, bit of water, done. “Nothing beats a homemade quiche with homemade dough,” she said. And she was right. Later that day, she texted me the ingredients. Flour, butter, salt, water. That’s it? I couldn’t believe something I’d been buying for years was just four ingredients and five minutes of work.

That got me thinking, what else could I make at home? And which dough should I use for what? A tart dough isn’t the same as a quiche dough. The sweet pastries used something else entirely. Turns out French pastry are four completely different doughs, each built for a specific job. Once you know which does what and why, the whole French baking thing clicks into place.

Butter melts at 32°C

Before we start, here’s the insight you’ll need to make it all work: French pastry is basically a battle against butter melting. Your hands are warm. Your kitchen’s probably warm. Butter melts at 32°C. So the French solution? Keep everything cold. Fridge your bowl. Fridge your butter. Work fast, rest the dough often, and when in doubt, stick it back in the fridge.

Pâte Brisée: the everyday workhorse

Pâte brisée is the simplest of the bunch, it’s like a shortcrust pastry, but calling it that misses the point. This is the pastry French home cooks knock up without thinking, I learned this one from my neighbour. It’s sturdy enough to hold a proper quiche filling, tender enough that it doesn’t taste like cardboard.

You rub or mix the butter into the flour until it looks a bit like breadcrumbs, then bring it together with the water. The trick is temperature. Leaving it twenty minutes in the fridge between mixing and rolling is key to a perfect dough and is non-negotiable.

Ratio to remember
2 parts flour : 1 part butter : 1 part water (by weight)

The method

1. Put your flour and salt in a bowl. Drop in those butter cubes. Now, using just your fingertips (your palms are too warm), squash and rub the butter into the flour. You want it to look like coarse breadcrumbs with some bigger pieces of butter still visible, those create the flaky bits.
2. Make a well in the middle. Pour in most of your cold water. Use a knife to kind of chop and mix it together, don’t use your hands yet, too warm. It should start clumping. Add the last bit of water if it’s too dry.
3. Then tip it onto your counter and do what the French call ‘fraisage’. Basically, use the heel of your hand to smear the dough away from you, bit by bit. You’re creating butter layers. Gather it back together, form a disc, wrap it, fridge it for at least an hour.

Honestly, sometimes I make this in the food processor. Pulse butter and flour, add water while pulsing, stop the second it comes together. Zero shame in that.

Pâte Sablée: the sweet and crumbly

Sablée means sandy, and that’s exactly what this feels like, fine, crumbly, melts on your tongue. It’s sweeter and richer than pâte brisée, more like a cross between shortbread and pastry. Think of sablée as the pastry equivalent of a rich biscuit base, sweet and tangibly buttery.

Mixing this is more about creating a rich, tender dough than one that’s sturdy. Because it’s crumbly, it’s less great for heavy, wet fillings but fantastic under delicate creams and fruit. Sometimes ground almonds, about 50g replacing the same amount of flour. Makes it even more crumbly and slightly nutty. Brilliant again with fruit tarts.

Ratio to remember
3 parts flour : 2 parts butter : 1 part sugar

The method

1. First, beat your soft butter with the sugar until it goes pale, couple of minutes with a mixer. You’re not just mixing, you’re making it fluffy.
2. Beat in your egg yolks one at a time. Now add all your flour at once and mix gently until it just comes together. The second it forms a dough, stop. Overworking makes it tough.
3. It’ll be quite soft. That’s normal. Wrap it and stick it in the fridge for at least 2 hours. When you’re ready to use it, you’ve got two choices: roll it between two sheets of baking paper (easiest), or just press chunks of it directly into your tart tin. The pressing method is brilliant, no rolling, no tearing, no swearing.

Pâte Sucrée: the crisp sweet base

This is what you see in those pristine patisserie windows, the tart shells that look like they were made by robots. Crisp, sweet, holds its shape perfectly. It’s pâte sablée’s more professional sibling. This dough’s prized for keeping its shape beautifully, so that’s why it’s the one used in bakeries.

Pâte sucrée shifts the gear towards something sweeter and crisper. Using icing sugar instead of caster sugar and creaming the butter and sugar together gives it a firmer texture and sharper edges after baking. Pâte sucrée blends sweet and crisp into a perfect pastry shell, and is reserved for sweet tarts and desserts because it’s a sweet dough by design.

Ratio to remember
2 parts flour : 1 part butter : just under 1 part sugar

The method

The difference between sablée and sucrée isn’t just the sugar type, it’s the mixing method that creates a completely different structure.

1. Beat the butter and icing sugar properly, like 3-4 minutes until it’s really white and fluffy. This matters. You’re trying to change the structure.
2. Add your egg bit by bit, beating well. If it looks like it’s curdling, your egg was too cold. Just keep beating, it’ll come together.
3. Tip in all the flour at once. Mix gently with a spatula or on the slowest mixer speed until it just comes together. Again, the enemy is overworking.
4. This dough really needs a good long rest. Overnight in the fridge is ideal. When you roll it, always between baking paper, always from the center out. If it cracks, just patch it up, not a problem.

Pâte Feuilletée: the flaky masterpiece

Finally, and by no means least, comes pâte feuilletée, better known as puff pastry. The name translates to “leafed pastry,” a fitting description for its countless thin, buttery layers that puff beautifully when baked. It’s a masterpiece of patience and precision. My advice? Try making it once, just to appreciate the craft, then do as the French do and buy it ready-made. Just be sure to choose one made with real butter, and you’re all set.

The method

1. Make your dough: mix flour, salt, water and melted butter until it comes together. It won’t be smooth, that’s fine. Knead it a couple of times, form a ball, cut a cross on top (helps it relax), wrap it, fridge for 30 minutes.
2. For the butter: put it between two sheets of baking paper and bash it with a rolling pin until it’s a 15cm square, about 1cm thick. You want it pliable but still cold. This is weird but important, the butter and dough need to be the same consistency.
3. Now the fun bit: roll your dough into a 30cm square. Put the butter square in the middle at an angle (like a diamond). Fold the corners of the dough over the butter like you’re wrapping a present. Seal the edges.
4. Roll this packet out to about 60cm x 20cm. Fold it in three like a letter. Turn it 90 degrees, roll out again, fold again. That’s two “turns”. Wrap it, mark it with two fingers so you remember, fridge for 30 minutes.
5. Do two more turns. Fridge. Two more turns. Fridge overnight. You’ve now got 729 layers. Mad.

Bonus: Pizza dough

You’re right to wonder why pizza dough is here. It’s not French. But French people make pizza all the time. This yeast-leavened dough gets you that lovely chewy, slightly crispy crust you want on your pizza.

The only reason to mention it is this: it’s the opposite of everything above. No butter. No careful temperature control. Just flour, water, yeast, salt, and time. Patience will let it rise slowly and brings out flavour and texture. Pizza dough plays nicely with lots of toppings and is a nice reminder that not all doughs are created equal.

The method

1. Mix the flour and water first. Just mix, don’t knead. Leave it 30 minutes, this is called autolyse and it makes the dough easier to work with.
2. Add everything else. Knead for about 10 minutes (or 5 in a mixer) until it’s smooth and stretchy. It’ll be quite wet and sticky, that’s right, don’t add more flour.
3. Put it in an oiled bowl, cover, leave for an hour. Every 20 minutes, wet your hand and fold the dough over itself four times. This builds structure without more kneading.
4. After an hour, divide into 3 or 4 balls (depending how big you want your pizzas). The best bit: stick these in the fridge for 1-3 days. The flavor gets so much better.
5. Take out an hour before using. Stretch from the middle outward, keep the edges thicker for the crust.

Why knowing your French pastry doughs matters

The French live with these pastries. Pâté brisée shows up at every lunch table in quiches or rustic tarts. Pâté sablée graces more elegant desserts and afternoon tea treats. Pâte sucrée keeps the patisseries tidy with perfect tartlets, and pâte feuilletée is the backbone of croissants and many small delights throughout the day.

Where you are in France also makes a difference. Regional ingredients and local tastes mean French pastry doughs can vary, buckwheat might sneak into a galette in Brittany, for example, while the Loire Valley plays up seasonal fruits in its tarts.

Understanding these doughs helps you pick out the perfect pastry for the right moment when baking at home. When you bite into a pastry, the dough’s texture, sweetness, and sturdiness shape the whole experience. It’s the foundation on which classic French baking rests.

Storage intelligence

Unbaked (raw) dough:

• Fridge: 3 days all types
• Freezer: 3 months (except feuilletée – 1 month)
• Wrap twice, plastic then foil

Blind-baked shells:

• Room temperature: 2 days in airtight container
• Freezer: 2 months (freeze in tin, then wrap)

Pro tip: Make double batches. The effort’s the same, future you will thank present you.

Over to you

So, that’s the lowdown on French pastry doughs. Surprising how few ingredients go into them, isn’t it? Ever given homemade pastry a go, or do you stick to the bakery queue? If you’ve got a favourite French recipe for one of these doughs (sweet or savoury) share it with the rest of us below. And if you’re rolling up your sleeves for the first time, don’t be shy! Tell us how you get on: photos, flops, victories and all.