The plain French short pastry — flour, cold butter, a yolk, ice water, salt. No sugar, so it works under a custard, a quiche, or fruit. Rubbed by hand, chilled once as a disc and again as a lined shell.

Ingredients

   
200g all-purpose flour
100g cold unsalted butter, cubed
1 egg yolk
40g ice water
3g salt

Steps

  1. Rub the cold butter into the flour and salt until sandy with some pea-sized bits left. (Food processor: pulse in short bursts, stop while it’s still uneven.)

  2. Mix the yolk into the ice water, add it, and bring the dough together — don’t overwork it. Flatten into a disc, wrap, and chill at least 1 hour.

  3. Roll the dough 2–3mm thick. Line the ring or pan — base and full sides — pressing into the corner and leaving a slight overhang. Dock the base all over with a fork.

  4. Freeze the lined shell hard, at least 30 minutes, before filling or baking. It stops the tall walls slumping and the base going soggy.

Analysis

Total dough: 361g (3g salt not broken out)

Component Amount %
Structure solids (flour) 200g 55.4%
Fat (butter, yolk) 88g 24.4%
Liquid (water, butter water, yolk water) 65g 18.0%
Sugar — —
Egg/protein 4g 1.1%

Structure and fat sit where matcha shortbread does (51.5% / 23.5%); the water is what makes it a pastry rather than a sand. Shortbread’s 9% liquid and no free water can’t develop gluten, so it crumbles; brisée’s 18% develops just enough to roll thin and stand up as a 2-inch wall. Fat to flour is 1:2 — the classic brisée ratio, and the ceiling before the dough turns short enough to tear when lined.

Notes

  • Keep the butter in visible bits. Stop rubbing while it’s still uneven — those flattened pieces are what make it flaky. Rubbed to an even paste it bakes closer to shortbread: tender but not layered.
  • Water is the one variable. 40g is the working amount for 200g flour; flour and humidity move it by a few grams either way. Add the last of it a little at a time and stop when the dough just holds together when pressed — a wet dough shrinks and toughens.
  • The two chills do different jobs. The disc rests the gluten so it rolls without springing back. The freeze after lining sets the shape, and that’s the one people skip — a fridge-cold shell slumps down a tall ring in the first ten minutes of baking.
  • Blind-baking, when the filling needs it. Not always required — a thick, pre-cooked, starch-set filling poured in hot bakes the raw base through (see Flan Pâtissier). For a thin, wet, or unbaked filling: bake the frozen shell at 425°F for 25 minutes with weights, then 5 minutes uncovered.
  • Make-ahead. The disc keeps 3 days refrigerated or 2 months frozen; a lined shell keeps a month in the freezer, wrapped, and goes into the oven straight from frozen. It’s worth making the dough the day before whatever it’s holding.
  • Scaling. This lines an 8×2-inch ring with a little to spare. A 9-inch × 1-inch tart pan or a 9-inch pie plate takes the same batch; a 9×2-inch ring wants ~1.25× (250g flour, 125g butter, 50g water, 4g salt).
  • Pâte sucrée is not this dough with sugar added. Sucrée is creamed, sweetened, and sturdier-but-sandier; brisée is rubbed and neutral. Use brisée where the filling is the sweet part.