Pastry is the name given to various kinds of baked goods made from ingredients such as flour, butter, shortening, baking powder or eggs. It may also refer to the dough from which such baked goods are made. Pastry dough is rolled out thinly and used as a base for baked goods. Common pastry dishes include pies, tarts and quiches..

Pastry is distinguished from bread by having a higher fat content, which contributes to a flaky or crumbly texture. A good pastry is light and airy and fatty, but firm enough to support the weight of the filling. When making a shortcrust pastry, care must be taken to blend the fat and flour thoroughly before adding any liquid. This ensures that the flour granules are adequately coated with fat and less likely to develop gluten. On the other hand, overmixing results in long gluten strands that toughen the pastry. In other types of pastry, such as Danish pastry and croissants, the characteristic flaky texture is achieved by repeatedly rolling out a dough similar to that for yeast bread, spreading it with butter, and folding it to produce many thin layers.

Many pie recipes involve blind-baking the pastry before the filling is added. Pastry dough may be sweetened or unsweetened.

History

European traditions of pastry-making are oftenFact: date=July 2008 traced back to the short crust era flaky doughs that were in use throughout the Mediterranean in ancient times. These recipes were popularized in Western Europe by Crusaders returning home. However, the Romans, Greeks and Phoenicians all had filo-style pastries in their culinary traditions. There is also strong evidence that the ancient Egyptians produced pastry-like confections. These recipes were adopted and adapted over time in various European countries, resulting in the myriad of pastry traditions known to the region, from Portuguese "pastéis de nata" in the west to Russian "pirozhky" in the east. The use of chocolate in pastry-making in the West, so commonplace today, arose only after Spanish and Portuguese traders brought chocolate to Europe from the New World starting in the 1500s. Many culinary historians consider French pastry chef Antonin Carème (1784-1833) to have been the first great master of pastry making in modern times. Small cakes, tarts and other sweet baked goods are called "pastries".

Pastry-making also has a strong tradition in many parts of Asia. Chinese pastry is made from rice, or different types of flour, with fruit, sweet bean paste or sesame-based fillings. Since the 19th century, the British brought western-style pastry to the far east. Though it would be the French influenced Maxim in the 1950s that made western pastry popular in Chinese-speaking regions starting with Hong Kong. Still, the term "west cake" (西餅) is used to differentiate between the automatically assumed Chinese pastry. Other Asian countries such as Korea have traditionally prepared pastry-confections such as tteok, hangwa, yaksi, among others with flour, rice, fruits, and regional specific ingredients to make unique type desserts. And Japan also has specialized pastry-confections better known as mochi and manju. Pastry-confection that have their origins from Asia are clearly distinct from the western pastry-confections that are generally much sweeter to the palate.