If you love sweet tarts and pies, you will want to add this French classic pastry crust to your repertoire! Pâte sucrée is rich and buttery with a hint of sweetness. It is light and tender, but structured enough to hold fillings without crumbling under pressure – perfect for baked and no-bake desserts.
This French pastry shell recipe is baked until crispy on the outer edges with an enticing golden brown hue. The sturdy cookie-like texture can withstand the weight of dense fillings as well as the added moisture from wet and creamy dessert fillings. It’s the obvious tart pastry shell of choice when it comes to special desserts like my Mixed Berry Tart and Tarte aux Framboise, although it’s so easy to make and work with, it would be great as an everyday pastry option too!
Pâte sucrée is a sweet pastry shell that is best for tarts where you want a sturdy, structured base while an American-style butter pie crust, with its light, flaky layers, is better suited for heavier, deeper pies served from a dish and eaten with a fork or spoon,
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🧈 Ingredients:
This pâte sucrée recipe contains a number of basic ingredients, and all of them are easy to find at your local grocery store. Let’s talk about the most important ingredients.
- Cold unsalted butter – the butter is cut into small pieces and deliberately chilled beforehand to ensure a sturdy pastry shell that will be able to hold a variety of dessert fillings while still being tender in texture.
- Ice water – used to help keep the dough mixture chilled which is essential to the process for making pastry. Add ice cubes to a bowl of water to make it sufficiently cold before it’s added to the lightly beaten egg yolk.
- Egg yolks – typically not found in flaky pie crusts, such as butter pie crust. The fat content of the yolks offers richness in flavor and moisture for a cookie-like crumb texture.
- Sugar – Another ingredient that is often omitted from classic American-style pie crusts. Sweet doughs, such as this pâte sucrée, rely on the addition of sugar for sweetness and a denser texture that you’d expect from a sugar cookie.
For a full list of ingredients and their measurements, 📋 please view my printable recipe card at the bottom of the post.
Substitutions and Variations
- Powdered sugar – While I’ve used granulated sugar to make this sweet pastry shell, powdered sugar is a great alternative. The fine powder incorporates easily into the dough mixture. For every cup of granulated sugar, use 1 ¾ cups of powdered sugar. Powdered sugar isn’t as sweet as granulated sugar, so if you use a 1:1 substitution, the crust may be slightly less sweet.
- Flour – Replace some of the all-purpose flour with almond meal (ground almonds) for a slightly nutty flavor in the tart pastry shell. The almond meal will also add a touch of moisture to the dough. For gluten-free pâte sucrée, use a gluten-free all-purpose flour.
- Flavor add-ins – Add vanilla extract or almond extract depending on the dessert filling you will use. Warm spices, such as cinnamon, apple pie spice, or pumpkin spice are perfect for fall-inspired tarts. You could even incorporate lemon or orange zest into the pâte sucrée dough for citrus tarts and pies.
- Butter – Salted butter can be used in this pastry shell recipe, but omit the salt from the ingredients.
🔪 Instructions:
PREP: Place the pieces of butter in the freezer for 5-10 minutes at the start of this recipe and fill a small bowl with ice cubes to get the water well chilled. This will ensure that the ingredients are well chilled for the best pastry shell texture.
Step 1: In the bowl of a food processor, mix together the flour, sugar, and salt.
Step 2: Add the cold butter pieces and pulse until the mixture resembles small pebbles.
Step 3: Whisk together the egg yolks and 4 tablespoons of ice water in a small bowl.
Step 4: With the food processor running, pour the egg/water mixture through the hole in the top of the machine until the dough pulls together.
Step 5: Turn the dough out onto a sheet of parchment paper or plastic wrap and divide into two sections.
Step 6: Pat each section into a disc and wrap tightly with plastic wrap.
Step 7: Chill the dough in the refrigerator for a minimum of 1 hour and up to 2 days.
Pro Tip: Crumple a square of parchment paper into a tight ball and then spread it out before placing it into the unbaked pastry shell crust. This helps it settle into the crust and up the edges when you add the pie weights in the step below.
Step 8: To prepare a tart pastry shell, unwrap one chilled disc and roll into a ¼” thick round.
Step 9: Place the round into a tart shell, lifting around the edges to tuck the dough down to the edge of the base and up the sides of the pan. Use a sharp knife to slice parallel to the top edge of the tart pan to remove the excess dough. You can also simply roll a rolling pin right over the top of the pan and it will slice off the excess dough.
Step 10: Prick holes in the bottom of the dough. Line the chilled shell with parchment paper and fill with dry beans or pie weights. Place in the refrigerator or freezer to chill for 30 minutes.
Step 11: Bake about 20-30 minutes until the shell has begun to turn golden brown. Lift the parchment paper and weights from the shell and continue cooking approximately 10 minutes more, until the shell is golden brown all over and has pulled away from the edges of the tart pan.
ALLOW TO COOL: Remove the crust from the oven and allow it to cool completely, ready for you to fill it with your choice of dessert filling for your family or guests to enjoy!
Recipe Tips for Homemade Pastry Shell
- If your dough crumbles while rolling it, add a small amount of ice water to it and then return it to the fridge to chill before attempting to roll it again. The additional cold water and refrigeration will lock in moisture for a smooth pastry that won’t fall apart.
- Keep all of the ingredients as cold as possible throughout this recipe. Try not to over handle the dough either as the added heat from your hands will warm up the dough and affect the texture of the baked pastry shell.
- If you have one, use a tart pan with a removable bottom which will make it much easier to remove the tart from the pan.
- Use ¾ of the dough (1 ½ discs) to fill an 11″ tart pan. You could also use pie tins.
- Ice water helps to solidify the fat from the butter in the dough which creates a slightly flaky and tender texture. Never substitute warmer water for ice water.
- The quantity of dough made from this recipe will easily make two 9” pastry tarts. You can use one baked pastry shell immediately for a dessert and freeze the other for later use!
Fun Fact
Pâte sucrée is French for “sweet dough”. Unlike classic American flaky pie crusts, this dessert tart pastry shell calls for sugar and egg yolks which creates a rich flavor and a cookie-like texture – perfect for no-cook or cooked dessert fillings without the risk of it crumbling apart as you enjoy each forkful! – Allrecipes.
Recipe FAQs
While pâte sucrée is a sweet pastry shell made with sugar, pâte brisée doesn’t call for sugar at all and is therefore a suitable pastry for savory tarts, pies, and quiches.
Use this tart pastry shell for baked or no-bake fillings. The pastry shell is baked sufficiently so that it is crispy and golden brown, allowing you to fill it with a sweet no-bake filling to chill before serving. For baked fillings, I recommend that you only par-bake the pastry shell so that it is crispy enough on the surface and doesn’t turn soggy, but is still slightly undercooked. The rest of the baking time with the filling will then bake the crust through. You can see these steps in action in our Lemon Curd Tart Recipe.
Absolutely! Once completely cool, store your baked pastry shell in an airtight container at room temperature or in the fridge for up to 5 days. It will also last for 1 month in the freezer.
If you tried this Pâte Sucrée Recipe or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how you liked it in the 📝 comments below.
Pate Sucree
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup 2 sticks cold unsalted butter cut into small pieces
- 2 large egg yolks lightly beaten
- 4 tablespoons ice water plus more if needed
Instructions
- In the bowl of a food processor, mix together the flour, sugar, and salt.
- Add the cold butter pieces and pulse until mixture resembles small pebbles.
- Whisk together the egg yolks and 4 tablespoons of ice water in a small bowl.
- With the food processor running, pour the egg/water mixture through the hole in the top of the machine until the dough pulls together.
- Turn the dough out onto a sheet of parchment paper or plastic wrap and divide into two sections.
- Pat each section into a disc and wrap tightly with plastic wrap.
- Chill in the refrigerator for a minimum of 1 hour and up to 2 days.
- To prepare a tart shell, unwrap one chilled disc and roll into a ¼” thick round.
- Place the round into a tart shell, lifting around the edges to tuck the dough down to the edge of the base and up the sides of the pan.
- Use a sharp knife to slice parallel to the top edge of the tart pan to remove the excess dough. You can also simply roll a rolling pin right over the top of the pan and it will slice off the excess dough.
- Prick holes in the bottom of the dough. Line the chilled shell with parchment paper and fill with dry beans or pie weights.
- Place in the refrigerator or freezer to chill for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Bake about 20-30 minutes until the shell has begun to turn golden brown. Lift the parchment paper and weights from the shell and continue cooking approximately 10 minutes more, until the shell is golden brown all over and has pulled away from the edges of the tart pan. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.
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Notes
- Crumple a square of parchment paper into a tight ball and then spread out before placing into the unbaked pastry crust. This will help it settle into the crust and up the edges when you add the pie weights.
- Recipe makes two 9” pastry tarts. Use a pan with a removable bottom for easy removal of the tart from the pan.
- Use ¾ of the recipe (1 ½ discs) to fill an 11” tart pan.
- Store unbaked dough in the refrigerator for up to 2 days or in the freezer for up to 2 months.
Nutrition
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