Pastry

Dough made mainly from flour and fat, and the baked goods made from it, from flaky pie crust and puff pastry to choux and croissants.

Pastry: An assortment of pastries on a board: a croissant, a fruit danish, a small tart and a cream puff
  • Cakes, cookies, pastries and baked goods

Pastries are grouped by how the fat is used. Shortcrust rubs fat into flour for a tender, crumbly shell; laminated pastries such as puff pastry, croissants and Danish fold butter into many layers; choux is cooked on the stove and puffed by steam; phyllo is stretched paper-thin.

Keeping fat cold is the common rule for most pastry, because firm fat makes distinct layers and flakes in the oven.

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Sources

Written by VanillaGoods in our own words from these sources. Last reviewed October 15, 2026.

  1. 6.4.1: Types of Pastry and Storage, Kansas State University, FNDH 313 Science of Food (LibreTexts; content by T. Rink and W. R. Thibodeaux, Nicholls State University)
  2. Project: Cream Puff Science, Purdue University Extension (Indiana 4-H)
  3. Pastry (Q477248), Wikidata