20 Breakfast Pastry Recipes for a Sweet Start to Your Day (2024)

FAQs

What is the simplest and most common pastry? ›

Shortcrust pastry is the simplest and most common pastry. It is made with flour, fat, butter, salt, and water to bind the dough.

Dough is uncooked, it is malleable and often contains raising agents, or yeast in order for it to rise and bake in the oven. Dough is essential for making breads and pizzas. Pastry usually refers to small cakes, it can also be the base for pies, tarts, quiches and flans. Pastry doesn't normally contain yeast.

In general, pastries are smaller in size than cakes, and they usually have a more intricate shape. Cakes, on the other hand, are often round or square and can be quite large. Pastries typically contain more sugar and butter than cakes, and they often have a crispy crust.

There are five basic types of pastry dough (a food that combines flour and fat): shortcrust pastry, filo pastry, choux pastry, flaky pastry and puff pastry.

Follow these easy tips the next time you're making pastry. The first golden rule of making pastry; keep the ingredients, the bowl and the hands as cool as possible.

The earliest known pastries were made by the ancient Egyptians. They baked cakes made from wheat and honey, often flavored with fruits and nuts.

Pillsbury™ Frozen Pie Dough is tender and flaky like puff pastry dough—but denser and buttery like traditional pie crust. And just like all our frozen doughs, they can be handled by any skill level and offer efficient prep with their quick thaw feature and ability to bake frozen on tight timelines.

The crescent-shaped croissant is a flaky pastry with buttery layers whereas a puff pastry is a drier composition of dough. Both use similar ingredients and preparation work.

The main differences between puff pastry and phyllo dough are their fat content and preparation. Puff pastry is a laminated dough that gets its signature airy puff from layers of butter, while phyllo dough is comparatively low-fat. Phyllo dough is mostly flour and water and can dry out easily.

Petit fours are delicate little cakes that originated in France. Their name translates to “small oven” in English as petit fours were baked with the residual heat of brick ovens used for breadmaking in the past. The bakers would use the lower heat to make pastries, and thus their name was coined.

Is a muffin a pastry? ›

Muffin – a kind of small pastries with many well-loved different flavors is also very popular. However, many people are confused about two types of pastries: muffins and cupcakes, which seem to be the same but have completely different ingredients and flavors.

A muffin isn't technically a pastry, even if it's a sweet muffin, although some folks call any sweet dessert a “pastry”. Pastry is specifically a dough with a high fat content that also contains a flour and water (or other liquid). It bakes into a flaky texture. Think pie crust, eclair, croissant, or baklava.

Some common examples include pies, tarts, donuts, croissants, Danishes, and scones. Here's a handful of our favorite recipes, including some easy shortcuts, such as frozen puff pastry or refrigerated piecrust.