Book 9, Question 65
Why Does Pie Dough Like Cold Butter?
Pie dough likes cold butter because cold butter chunks melt in the oven and leave flaky steam pockets! Warm butter blends in completely. That can make a crust tough or greasy.
More fun facts
- Butter is a mix of fat and water. In a hot oven, its water turns to steam.
- For puff pastry, butter must stay cold, or it melts into the dough and cannot form flaky layers.
- To make puff pastry, bakers roll out dough, add butter, fold it into three layers and repeat.
- Pastry chefs say the key to great pastry is keeping everything cold and not overworking the dough.
- One trick is to bash cold butter between sheets of baking paper with a rolling pin to make it bendy without melting it.
Questions kids ask
Why must pastry butter stay cold?
Warm butter melts into the dough and cannot form the separate layers that make pastry flaky.