A Pastry Chef’s Secret for the Crispiest, Flakiest Pie Dough Ever

I first delved into the intricacies of pâte brisée, a French tart dough, during pastry school, when we used it as the base for a tarte aux pommes, a traditional French tart with paper-thin apple slices arranged in a circle, shingled over one another. It was buttery and flaky, and reminded me of my favorite American pie crust. Like pâte sucrée and pâte sablée, this fundamental French dough is a versatile base for pies, tarts, and other pastries. While pâte sucrée and pâte sablée are sweet and best paired with fruit or frangipane, brisée’s neutral flavor works equally well for desserts as it does for savory bakes like quiches, vegetable tarts, or canapés.

Buttery, flaky pâte brisée requires just a handful of basic ingredients: typically flour, butter, salt, water, and sometimes a touch of sugar. Some recipes also incorporate egg or egg yolk for a variation known as pâte à foncer, an egg-based dough that’s slightly sturdier and easier to work with but less tender. I prefer pâte brisée’s flaky texture, and instead of compromising texture for ease of workability, I’ve skipped the egg in the dough for the lightest, crispest pastry possible. But not to worry—my recipe below has tips for working with the crust, and it’s really not too finicky.

The Building Blocks of Pâte Brisée: Sablage and Fraisage

There’s no way around it: To make good pâte brisée, you need to get your hands dirty—or rather, buttery and floury. This recipe employs two key French pastry practices. First, there’s sablage, the motion of rubbing cold butter into flour with your fingertips, which coats the gluten proteins in fat, minimizing gluten development for a crisp, tender crust. While we want some gluten development for structure, we don’t want too much, which would result in a tough, brittle crust. Then, there’s fraisage, a technique that involves using the heel of your hand to smear the dough across a hard surface, distributing fat and moisture. The process creates long ribbons of butter, and as the shell bakes, these ribbons of butter melt, creating little pockets of steam that create the flaky layers in the crust. They’ll be especially obvious after freezing, so don’t be surprised by the marbled white appearance—it means you’re on your way to perfect pâte brisée.

Why It’s Important to Blind Bake—and How to Do It

Blind baking, or baking the pastry shell before you fill it, serves several purposes. First, it allows the crust to bake evenly and ensures that it can support a wet filling without leaking or becoming soggy. Blind baking also means that the crust can be used for fillings that will not be baked themselves, such as curds, mousses, or cream-based pie fillings. 

To blind bake, line the unbaked pastry shell with parchment (I like to crumple the paper so it conforms to the shape of the pan), then fill it with weights, such as pie weights, uncooked rice, sugar, or dry beans. Bake until the edges turn very light brown, remove the parchment carefully to avoid damaging the pastry, then follow the recipe you’ve chosen to fill and finish the pie or tart. You can partially blind bake pâte brisée, add a filling, then bake the rest of the way, or fully bake it for cold fillings like fruit curds and pastry creams.

Any flat or fluted tart pan will work for pâte brisée, but I recommend choosing one with a removable bottom. This handy feature makes it easier to remove the delicate pastry shell, minimizing the risk of breakage.

One more tip: If you plan to bake multiple tart shells in the same session, keep plenty of extra dried beans or your pie weight of choice on hand. Never use hot beans or weights for blind baking, as they will melt the butter in the crust before you’ve even had a chance to put the pastry in the oven.

5 Key Techniques to Keep in Mind for Making the Best, Flakiest Pâte Brisée

1. Relax and chill. You’ll notice there’s a lot of chilling in the recipe below. This is intentional: chilling relaxes the gluten—making the crust more tender—and keeps the butter firm, which is essential for a crispy, flaky crust. 
2. Pay attention to the balance of flour and water. Flour your rolling pin and work surface to prevent the dough from sticking, and also coat your fingertips with a thin layer of flour before pressing the dough into the pan. Don’t go overboard, though—too much flour will throw off the dry-to-liquid ingredient ratio, creating a dry, crumbly dough and a tough crust.
3.  Don’t overwork the dough. Excess kneading promotes gluten development, and too much gluten can toughen the pastry and cause it to shrink as it bakes.
4. Pay attention to the oven. Pâte brisée is not a “set it and forget it” recipe. Check the tart shell every few minutes (with the oven light on and door closed!), especially near the end of the bake. I also recommend using visual cues—not just the clock—as a guide. The pastry should be deeply golden-brown all over; the amount of time this takes will vary based on your oven, the pan you’ve chosen, and your blind baking technique.
5. Dock the pastry. After removing your chosen pie weights, prick small holes in the bottom to prevent the pastry from doming as it continues to bake. I recommend using a fork to dock tart shells, as the utensil can easily reach the edges of the pan.

How to Use Pâte Brisée

You can use pâte brisée anywhere you’d use a homemade pie crust, such as cherry or apple pie. In addition, this versatile dough works well for a range of traditional French pastry recipes such as tarte amandine (almond cream tart), tarte aux fruits (fruit tart with pastry cream), and tarte aux pommes (apple tart). In addition to sweet recipes, pâte brisée makes an excellent base for savory vegetable galettes, quiche, onion tarte tatin, and cheese and vegetable tarts. You can even use it to make canapés or press it into a muffin tin or mini tart tins to make appetizer-size portions of any quiche or tart.