National Pastry Day

Today, December 9th, is National Pastry Day.

Yes, there is a day dedicated to ... pastries!?!  I have done a bit of reading on this topic, and I can't find out when it started, or who declared this date to be National Pastry Day.  But nevertheless the day has arrived.

What is pastry specifically?  It is a dough comprised of flour, water, and shortening.  It might have fillings; it might not.  It might be savory; it might be sweet.  It has a different texture than bread dough because of the higher fat content.  And it's how that fat content is handled when the dough is made which gives us all the different wonderful pastries that we all love.

Different types of pastry doughs include names such as:

choux

flaky

hot water crust

phyllo

pate sablée

pate sucrée

puff

rough puff

shortcrust

suet crust

All pastry doughs are differentiated by the techniques used in their creation.  We won't go into that here because that is a long long long discussion.  Personally I find all pastries enjoyable to make, marvelous to eat, and it makes me very happy to share them.  

Have a great day everyone!  I hope the days heading up to our end-of-the-year holiday celebrations are filled with laughter and joy!