Simple Pat-in-the-Pan Tart Crust Recipe

A young, buttery, and exquisite crust is a trademark of any nice dessert tart, whether or not you are filling the shell with a thick pastry cream and artfully fanned recent fruit or a silky chocolate ganache. A well-made tart shell is harking back to buttery shortbread—sturdy when dealt with however tender and crumbly as soon as bitten into. And it must assist even the heaviest of fillings with out crumbling into items or getting soggy.

The basic three French tart doughs—shorty and crumby pâte sucrée, buttery and sandy pâte sablée, and flaky pâte brisée—all make unimaginable tart shells, however all three doughs require chilly butter, exact mixing methods, and hours of chilling earlier than the dough is rolled out with a rolling pin, adopted by much more chilling after the tart shell is lined with the dough earlier than baking. It’s labor intensive to say the least, and this doesn’t even account for the tart’s filling! I needed to make a tart shell with a sturdy melt-in-your-mouth cookie texture just like a pâte sucrée, however I needed a dough that was a lot simpler to place collectively and didn’t require using a stand mixer or hours of chilling time earlier than baking.

On this easy pat-in-the-pan tart shell, the dry components are mixed in a big bowl earlier than melted butter is gently stirred in till a cohesive dough kinds. In contrast to pâte sucrée, as soon as this simple dough is shaped it may be instantly pinched and patted into the tart pan after which baked. It requires no chilling time or rolling. Listed below are some ideas for making a buttery and crumbly tart crust that comes collectively in below an hour.

Begin with Good Butter

A tart shell is greater than only a fairly fluted vessel for its filling. An amazing crust must style buttery and wealthy with a touch of sweetness to enrich a variety of fillings. And with so few components, a lot of the tart dough’s taste comes from the butter. So begin with good high quality butter—one that you’d take pleasure in all by itself smothered over a bit of bread.

I like to recommend going with a butter with a considerable quantity of butterfat. I examined this recipe with each European-style butter, which usually has an 82 to 85% butterfat vary, in addition to American butter, which often has about 80% butterfat, and so they each work very effectively. However the barely greater butterfat share in European-style butter, similar to Kerrygold or Plugrà, offers the butter—and thus the tart shell—a richer taste than most American-style butters and I barely want that further wealthy style.

Past the butterfat share, butter’s taste is influenced by what the cows are consuming. I want the extra complicated taste of butter that comes from grass-fed cows over butter from grain-fed cows. Past that, my basic rule (and the rule all of us comply with at Severe Eats) is to make use of unsalted butter when baking. That’s as a result of the quantity of salt utilized in salted butter can range not simply from model to model, however even from stick to stay. When utilizing unsalted butter you get rid of the salt variable, and as a substitute depend on a measured quantity of salt within the dough.

Use Melted Butter As a substitute of Chilly Butter for an Simpler Tart Dough

Along with lending its taste, butter additionally contributes to the tart shell’s “shortness,” the crumbly texture you’ll discover in shortbread and another cookies. The way you incorporate the butter into the dough determines the dough’s ultimate texture. The basic pâte sucrée begins by creaming butter with sugar to create pockets of air that steam throughout baking to create a tart shell with a lighter texture.

With this easy tart dough, a lighter aerated dough is just not the purpose, so I skip the creaming and chilling steps related to pâte sucrée and as a substitute the butter is melted and stirred into the flour combination by hand. The melted butter coats the flour evenly, which restricts gluten growth to realize a super quick and tender tart crust. There’s additionally no want to relax the dough after mixing. (Genevieve makes use of this identical trick in her easy shortbread.)

For Simpler Shaping, Press the Dough Into the Pan Proper After Mixing

As soon as the dough is combined, it’s best to line the tart shell whereas the dough continues to be heat and malleable from the new melted butter. As soon as it cools it’ll agency up and be more durable to form. The simplest method to line the tart shell is to easily pinch roughly one- to two-inch items of the dough off at a time and scatter them across the backside and up the edges of the tart pan, urgent into a good layer as you go and ensuring to press firmly into the fluted sides of the pan. I like to recommend utilizing a small offset spatula or a big measuring cup to assist easy the underside. 

For urgent the dough into the edges of the tart shell, your fingers are one of the best software. The dough must be flush to the highest fringe of the pan. You need to use a bench scraper or knife to trim off any extra dough.

Skip Blind Baking and Bake at a Regular Temperature

With basic preparation for French tart dough, as described above, chilly butter is creamed and aerated to lighten the dough barely because it bakes. To regulate the dough puffing when the empty tart shell is baked, most recipes depend on first blind baking the shell. This course of suppresses any giant air bubbles that will initially type within the dough. It appears a bit counterintuitive, proper? Work actually onerous and take the time to maintain the dough chilly to create these gentle air pockets, solely to then suppress them by weighing them down. You need the dough lightened, however nonetheless quick and cookie-like. It’s a dance of management for a simply proper texture that’s difficult to realize.

We skip this whole chilly butter/blind bake dance by beginning with melted butter. When melted butter is used, the danger of steam bubbles puffing up the dough is minimized. There isn’t any must blind bake the crust. Certain, the ultimate texture is likely to be a bit extra “quick” than a basic pâte sucrée, however it’s the sturdy melt-in-your-mouth cookie texture I needed in my tart shell. To attain a good gentle golden shade from edge to edge, this recipe requires baking the shell at a reasonable baking temperature of 350℉ your entire time. You’re mainly baking one giant cookie.

Add Non-compulsory Taste to Your Tart Crust

One other perk to this simpler method to tart dough is which you can adapt the shell’s taste as effectively. Under the principle recipe are strategies for tips on how to make a brown butter crust, a chocolate crust, and a citrus crust. Whether or not you follow the basic butter tart dough, or select certainly one of these taste variations, I hope this one-bowl tart dough recipe is simple and approachable sufficient to encourage you to make extra tarts. This recipe works effectively with our lemon tart recipe, or high it with lemon, chocolate, or vanilla pastry cream and your most popular sliced seasonal fruit for a formidable fruit tart.