Why does the dough for a pastry taste sweeter than the pastry itself?
In: Chemistry
You will probably need to be much more specific about which kind of pastry/filling you are referring to. There is a big difference between a ham/comte tart and a pecan praline pie
Dough for a pastry can be made of several different things, and be different depending on what dessert you are referring to. There could even be a dough that incases a savory filling so that would answer your question.
Sweeter than the filling, that really depends on the filling.
Pastry dough, I assume you are referring to short dough, is typically made up of flour, butter, water, salt and *sometimes* sugar. Flour and butter both have naturally occurring sugars, and salt will “open” your tastebuds so the sweetness might be more noticeable.
Many classic tarts are brushed with preserves so there is some more sweetness added.
However, as I mentioned in the beginning, it all really depends on the pastry you’re referring to.
When any dough is baked, it’s exposed to high heat and undergoes browning and caramelization. This converts sugars to a variety of other compounds that don’t taste as sweet. Consider what happens when you overdo this – the dough burns and becomes extremely bitter. Compared to cake, which goes into the oven dense, wet, and protected, pastry is designed to flake, brown, and essentially get fried in the butter distributed throughout the dough.
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