baking pies and pastry

• Bakeries sell pies as dessert items.
• A pie is a baked dish consisting of layers of pastry dough that form a shell and have sweet or sour fillings.
• Pies can also be filled with meat and eaten as a dinner, however such pies are rarely found in bakeries.
• Some traditional varieties of pies sold in bakeries include apple, strawberry, blackberry, cherry, cream, custard, key lime, and lemon meringue.
• Brioche dough is enriched with butter and eggs and is best handled cold, as the butter keeps it firm, but should then be left in a warm place to rise.
• The dough is rolled with butter to create layers and is then left to rise, creating a very light texture.
• Croissant dough is a flaky raised dough used to make croissants and "pains au chocolate".
• The downside of croissant dough is that it is technically involved and requires a great deal of work.
• Cobbler pie is a pie made of a flavorful fruit filling that is cooked in a large baking pan and later appears to have a thickened crust after baking because of its battered pastry cover.
• Pizza pie is a popular dish made with an oven-baked, flat, generally round bread that is covered with tomatoes or a tomato-based sauce and mozzarella cheese.
• Mince meat is a spicy sweet preserve consisting of a mixture of dried and candied fruits, apples, and spices that are heavily laced with brandy or rum.
• Shepherd’s pie is a pie-layered casserole or ground beef and veggies in homemade gravy topped with cheddar cheese and mashed potatoes.
• Pies have a tender, flaky crust that can top a variety of fillings.
• Pies can be sweet and served as a dessert.
• Pies can also be savory and be meat-filled or vegetables.
• Pastries refer to baked goods made with ingredients that often include butter, sugar, shortening, flour, baking powder, and eggs.
• Pastries, higher in fat content than breads, include small desserts and quiches.
• Other types of pastries include Danish pastry and croissants.
• Dough used to make pie crust, tarts, and turnovers is a type of pastry.
• All three of these flaked pastries need similar care, including handling as little and as lightly as possible, having the fat and dough content of the same consistency and temperature, and rolling pastry evenly without stretching it or forcing out air.
• Filo pastry, along with finely shredded Kaddafi pastry, is made in very thin sheets and used as a casing for numerous delicate savory and sweet dishes, and needs careful handling because it is such a thin, fragile pastry that dries out quickly.
• Rough puff pastry is a cross between puff and flaky pastry, good for sausage rolls, savory pie crusts, and tarts, and is easier to make than puff pastry, but is as light as flaky pastry.
• Choux pastry is an incredibly light specialty pastry used in the making of éclairs, profiteroles, and cream buns, and should be air lifted during cooking to treble in size.
• Samosas are deep-fried with spicy fillings, wrapped in filo pastry, and prawns in filo pastry make popular savory nibbles.
• Suet crust pastry is traditional, British pastry used for steamed or boiled puddings, dumplings, and roly-poly puddings, and is made with self-raising flour, shredded suet and for some lighter recipes, fresh white bread crumbs.
• Brioche dough is the dough used for brioches, Kouglof, and certain types of bread, a rich dough made with yeast, which needs time to rise.
• Flaky pastry is used for savory pies, sausage rolls, cakes, and jam puffs, and is best made in cool conditions and must be chilled during and after making to prevent the fat content from melting out under cooking conditions.
• Pate sucree pastry is French, a sweet pastry that incorporates sugar and egg yolks for a rich, sweet result, usually baked blind, giving a thin, crisp pastry that melts in the mouth.
• Short crust pastry is probably the most versatile type of pastry as it can be used for savory and sweet pies, tarts, and flans.
• Puff pastry is one of the "flaked pastries" characterized by fat and air being trapped between the layers of the pastry dough to give a flimsy, light, and crisp finish.
• Puff pastry is regarded in as the ultimate professional pastry, this type is time-consuming but worth making.