Dough & Pastry
Food Preparation & Nutrition: AQA GCSE, topic 1.1.6
Making a Dough
Pasta, pastries and bread are all made from dough.
Common ingredients
- Most doughs - water, flour and a touch of salt are base ingredients.
- Pasta dough - uses eggs instead of water.
- Bread dough - yeast is used as a raising agent.
Technical skills
- Shortening - coating flour in fat to give the flour a waterproof layer. The gluten in the flour cannot form long strands. This stops the dough from stretching and products have a crumbly/firm texture. It's used when making shortcrust pastry.
Technical skills (cont.)
- Gluten formation - happens when you're kneading dough. The gluten in the flour stretches and creates long protein strands. When the dough is cooked, the strands harden and the bread stays stretched.
- Fermentation (proving) - leaving the dough to rest and rise before baking.
Properties of Pastries
Pastry doughs are all different. The different doughs produce pastries with different properties.
Shortcrust
- Has a 'short' (crumbly) texture:
- The fat coats the flour particles, creating a waterproof coating and preventing the gluten from forming.
- Pies (e.g. apple, Mince, steak and kidney), pastries (e.g. Cornish) and quiches (e.g. quiche Loraine) use shortcrust pastry.
Sweet
- Sweet type of pastry.
- Shortcrust with added icing sugar.
- Tarts like apple tart use sweet pastry, as well as tortes and tartlets.
Puff
- Flakey, layered pastry.
- Sausage rolls, pies (e.g. chicken pot pie) and things like palmiers (French pastry) and spinach puffs use puff pastry.
Choux
- Has a hollow centre.
- Light form of pastry.
- Eclairs, profiteroles and choux buns use choux pastry.
- Doesn't rise.
Filo
- Delicate and crisp form of pastry.
- Baklava, samosas and filo parcels use filo pastry.
Test yourself on Dough & Pastry
Which of the following foods is NOT made from dough?
What is used as a raising agent in bread dough?
What are the base ingredients for most doughs?
What process happens when you're kneading dough?
Which of the following is NOT a type of pastry?