How to Make Pâte Sablée

Pâte Sablée is a classic French shortcrust pastry dough known for its sweet, crisp, and crumbly texture. It's used as a base for various tarts and pies, and takes just a few minutes to put together in a food processor. This guide offers step-by-step directions and photos to help you make Pate Sablee effortlessly.

Pâte Sablée (pronounced pat sah-BLAY) is a classic French shortcut pastry. Its name might sound intimidating, but it's simply a sweet crumbly dough used for tarts and sweet pies. This sweet tart crust is basically a cookie (a bit like these shortbread cookies) baked in a tart pan or pie tin. It is different from other shortcrust pastry recipes, such as the Pâte Sucrée recipe, because an egg and almond flour are added in addition to the traditional sweet pie crust ingredients, which enhances the flavor and texture of the crust.

It is sturdy enough to hold a heavier tart filling (like a hefty Fruit Tart) but delicate enough to have a light buttery crispness to it. It also comes together quickly in a food processor and requires only 6 ingredients. Doesn't get any easier than that!

So, let's get to making it, shall we? The article below is jam packed full of useful information. You can jump around using the menu below, or skip to the end of the article for the full recipe.

Jump to:

• Let's Talk French Pastry
• Ingredients Needed and Substitutions
• Step-By-Step Recipe Overview
• Tips for Rolling Out Pâte Sablée
• How to Use It
• Baking Tips
• More Pie Crust Recipes
• Full Recipe

Let's Talk French Pastry

There are three classic French pastry recipes: Pâte Brisée, Pâte Sucrée, and Pâte Sablée. However, depending on the source you reference, the differences between them can vary. This can make it difficult to understand why there are multiple pie pastry recipes and which one you should use. Therefore, I would like to briefly explain my understanding of the differences from my time studying pastry and how I differentiate and use them on this website.

Pâte Brisée: This dough can be used in sweet and savory applications and is the most basic of all pastry recipes. It is also the pastry that most closely resembles American-style butter pie crusts (which tend to emphasize flaky layers). The butter in Pâte Brisée is blended very thoroughly into the flour, resulting in a tighter ("shorter") crumb. It's a forgiving pastry that is easy to make (and eat). This is a great everyday dough for everyday pie recipes.

Pâte Sucrée: This is also known as sweet pie crust. This pastry uses similar ingredients to flaky Pâte Brisée, with one big exception: granulated sugar. The added sugar not only makes the pie dough sweet, but it also makes it crisper and more tender because of the granulated sugar cuts through the gluten formation. It has some flake to it, but not as much as a flaky pie dough without sugar. It's great if you want a classic pie crust, but for a pie that needs to be refrigerated before serving, such as a chocolate cream pie.

And finally, the dough at hand: Pâte Sablée has most of the same ingredients as the previous two. However, it has added fat in the form of an egg, as well as almond flour. This extra fat not only improves the flavor of the pastry but also adds a delightful crisp yet tender texture. And instead of granulated sugar, which is more coarse and inhibits gluten, powdered sugar contributes to a sturdy yet crumbly texture.

Ingredients Needed and Substitutions

Here is a brief overview of the ingredients needed for this recipe. The full recipe with quantities is listed below this text in the recipe card.

Step-By-Step Recipe Overview

Using the food processor makes preparing this pastry so easy. It's done in a matter of minutes and the clean-up is minimal since it's all made in one bowl.

Here is a quick visual overview of the steps needed to make this recipe. This is not the actual recipe, which is located at the end of this article and has much greater details to ensure success.

Making it Without a Food Processor

If you don't have a food processor, it can be made in an electric stand mixer (like this Stand Mixer Pie Crust). To make it:

1. To begin, use the paddle attachment to blend the dry ingredients first.
2. Next, add the butter and mix on medium-low until it is mostly blended in. The mixture should have a sandy texture.
3. Add in the egg and mix on low speed until it's completely combined, and then immediately stop. Do not overwork the dough.

Tips for Rolling Out Pâte Sablée

After finishing the pâte sablée, it may be soft and difficult to roll out. Chill it for 30-60 minutes, wrapped tightly in plastic, before rolling it out.

Unlike a traditional butter pie crust made in a food processor, you’ll want the pâte sablée at the end of the process to be one cohesive ball, without any large butter pieces remaining. If you do have a large piece of butter, it can create problems when rolling it out and baking. If by chance you happen to see any large pieces of butter after you’ve made it, you can fix it by gently working the butter into the dough, so no large chunks remain.

Pâte sablée has more sugar than traditional Flaky Pie Crust, so it tends to stick a bit more. You can roll it out between two pieces of plastic wrap (I wouldn't recommend parchment). Or you can flour it enough so it doesn't stick, but not so much that it's covered in excess flour. This is my preferred method.

How to Use It

Pâte sablée is perfect for tarts, such as this Honeynut Squash Tart or Coconut Lime Tart. It also can work for a cream pie (as in, Chocolate Cream Pie) and with a baked custard (like this Coffee Custard Pie.)

You can use it as a blind-baked pie shell, or you can bake a pie directly in the raw pastry. Reference the recipe of the pie (filling) you are planning to make to decide on how to bake it.

If you are completely new to blind baking, check out this Blind Baking Guide I've created to teach you more about it.

More Pie Crust Recipes

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