12.5–12.6 Common Defects in Pastry and Pies and their Probable Causes – Basic Scientific Food Preparation Lab Manual (2024)

FAQs

What are the common problems in making pastry products? ›

Whether you use a food processor, a stand mixer, or your hands to incorporate the ingredients together, overmixing is a common mistake that leads to a chewy crust. It's tempting when baking to combine the ingredients completely, but the texture should resemble a coarse meal before adding your liquid.

General rules

Keep everything as cool as possible otherwise the fat may melt which would spoil the finished dish. Introduce as much air as possible during making. Allow to relax after making to allow the fat to harden.

Oven not hot Overmixing. enough or dough too stiff. Coarse or uneven grain Too much leavening, not Insufficient beating of Improper make-up, enough liquid, or eggs. Too much or not excessive water or improper mixing.

Your dough might be too dry or unevenly hydrated.

When dough doesn't have enough water, or if it's not properly hydrated (more on that below), it will feel and look dry and be prone to cracking. Not good. See the video above for an example of properly hydrated dough.

If your pie dough breaks and crumbles when you try to roll it out, it's probably too dry. This is a relatively easy fix. Just sprinkle some cold water over the dough with your fingers and work it in—gently! —until the dough comes together.

If the fat melts before a strong gluten structure has formed, the pastry will end up soggy. Overly moist fillings can also contribute to a soggy bottom as the liquid will drop to the bottom of the pie and ooze into the pastry. To ensure crisp pastry, the base can be blind baked before adding the filling.

What are the pastry defects? ›

Oven temperature too low; cold pastry put over hot filling; too much liquid in filling or too little filling. Insufficient liquid; too little kneading; liquid not boiling when added to flour. liquid not boiling when added to flour, too much liquid, dough not cooked enough to set required shape.

Answer. Answer: overheat, unguarded, uncooked, wrong ingredients, wrong amount of ingredient, or wrong temperature.

The challenges of bread and pastry production include technological problems related to dough rheological properties and final product characteristics, as well as the need for sustainable innovations and improvement strategies throughout the production chains ¹.

Richard's solution: Tough pastry is very common, but easily avoidable. It usually occurs when you've been a bit heavy-handed with the water when you're initially bringing the pastry together (by adding water to the flour and butter), or if you have over-worked the dough and developed the gluten in the flour.

The bakery industry faces multiple challenges that may seem overwhelming. The increase in energy costs, the lack of qualified personnel, inflation, and efficient management are just some of the obstacles that must be overcome to succeed in this business.

If the dough is overworked, it can become tough and difficult to roll out. This can happen if the dough is kneaded too much or if too much flour is added during the rolling process. Shortcrust pastry can shrink during baking if it's not properly chilled beforehand or if it's rolled too thin.