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PASTRIES
- For a description of the Pastry Distributed Hash Table see Pastry (DHT).
Pastry is the name given to various kinds of dough made from ingredients such as flour, butter, shortening, baking powder and/or eggs that are rolled out thinly and used as the base for baked goods. Common pastry dishes include pies, tarts, and quiches.
A good pastry is light and airy, easily broken in the mouth (what is called 'short' eating), but firm enough to support the weight of the filling. The dough must be well mixed, but care must be taken not to overmix the pastry, which results in long gluten strands and toughens the pastry. Thus the manufacture of good pastry is something of a fine art.
As pastry must be baked to be edible, and pie fillings often do not need extra baking, many pie recipes involve blind-baking the pastry before the filling is added
European traditions of pastrymaking are often traced back to the filo-style doughs that were in use throughout the Mediterranean in ancient times, and these recipies were popularized in Western Europe by crusaders returning home, although the Romans, Greeks,and Phonoecians all had filo-style pastries in their cullinary traditions. There is also strong evidence that the ancient Egyptians produced pastry-like confections, as well. These recipies were adopted and adapted over time in various European countries, resulting in the myriad of pastry traditions known to the region, from Portuguese "pastis de nata" in the west to Russian "pirozhky" in the east. Pastrymaking also has a strong tradition in Asia, where Chinese and Japanese pastries evolved based largely on rice- or sesame-based doughs and fruit or bean curds for fillings. The use of chocolate in pastrymaking in the West, so commonplace today, arose only after Spanish and Portuguese traders brought chocolate to Europe from the New World starting inthe 1500s. Many cullinary historians consider French pastry chef Antonin Carème (1784-1833) to have been the first great master of pastrymaking in modern times.
Small cakes, tarts and other sweet dishes involving pastry are often called 'pastries' after their primary ingredient, and bakers and chefs who specialise in producing them are called Pastry chefs.
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