123 Dough

By stancec44

From Brave Tart: Or, as my brother says, “ready, set, dough.” The one-two-three in the name refers to the ratio of sugar, butter and flour used in the recipe, but it’s also as easy as 1-2-3 to put together. I use it for my go-to tart shell, but it can be rolled out and cut as a sugar cookie too.

The dough is stiff enough to roll out as soon as you make it but it stores well too, meaning you don’t have to make and bake it on the same day, if splitting up the work load helps fit a fresh fruit tart in your schedule.

Ingredients

• 2 ounces sugar
• 4 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
• 6 ounces flour, sifted
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla or extract of your choice
• optional: 1 teaspoon citrus zest, scrapings from 1/2 a vanilla bean, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, etc.
• powdered sugar for rolling

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat oven to 350° and lightly grease the tart pan(s). If you’re making one large tart, using a pan with a removable bottom would be ideal.

With a hand or stand mixer, cream together sugar, butter and salt (plus flavoring, if using) for just a few seconds to combine. Add in flour at the lowest speed and mix another minute or two more. The mixture will appear quite mealy and not look particularly dough-like; worry not.

Knead lightly by hand against the sides of the bowl until a smooth dough forms. You can roll out the dough right away, or flatten into a disc, wrap with plastic, and refrigerate until needed (freeze if you’d like to store it for the long term).

When ready to roll, dust the counter and surface of the dough lightly with powdered sugar. Roll the dough to 1/4” thickness and score into 10 portions if making individual tarts. If making one large tart, roll the dough up and onto the pin, then unroll over the tart shell.

In either case, gently press the dough into the tart pan(s), breaking off any excess by pressing the dough firmly against the edge of the tart pan. Use any extra dough to patch up holes or thin spots. The dough is extremely forgiving and you can piece together scraps of dough to form a tart without having to re-roll.

Use a fork to dock the dough all over and bake until very lightly browned, about 14 minutes. Cool the tarts for at least 10 minutes before trying to remove from the shell. Mini tarts will come out easily by simply flipping them over and tapping the edge against the counter.

Fill with lemon curd (separate recipe) or pastry cream, or whatever sort of filling you fancy.