Easy Pat-in-the-Pan Tart Crust

A tender, buttery, and beautiful crust is a hallmark of any great dessert tart, whether you’re filling the shell with a thick pastry cream and artfully fanned fresh fruit or a silky chocolate ganache. A well-made tart shell is reminiscent of buttery shortbread—sturdy when handled but tender and crumbly once bitten into. And it needs to support even the heaviest of fillings without crumbling into pieces or getting soggy.

The classic three French tart doughs—shorty and crumby pâte sucrée, buttery and sandy pâte sablée, and flaky pâte brisée—all make incredible tart shells, but all three doughs require cold butter, precise mixing techniques, and hours of chilling before the dough is rolled out with a rolling pin, followed by even more chilling after the tart shell is lined with the dough before baking. It is labor intensive to say the least, and this doesn’t even account for the tart’s filling! I wanted to make a tart shell with a sturdy melt-in-your-mouth cookie texture similar to a pâte sucrée, but I wanted a dough that was much easier to put together and didn’t require the use of a stand mixer or hours of chilling time before baking.

In this simple pat-in-the-pan tart shell, the dry ingredients are combined in a large bowl before melted butter is gently stirred in until a cohesive dough forms. Unlike pâte sucrée, once this easy dough is formed it can be immediately pinched and patted into the tart pan and then baked. It requires no chilling time or rolling. Here are some tips for making a buttery and crumbly tart crust that comes together in under an hour.

Start with Good Butter

A tart shell is more than just a pretty fluted vessel for its filling. A great crust needs to taste buttery and rich with a hint of sweetness to complement a range of fillings. And with so few ingredients, most of the tart dough’s flavor comes from the butter. So start with good quality butter—one that you would enjoy all on its own smothered over a piece of bread.

I recommend going with a butter with a substantial amount of butterfat. I tested this recipe with both European-style butter, which typically has an 82 to 85% butterfat range, as well as American butter, which usually has about 80% butterfat, and they both work very well. But the slightly higher butterfat percentage in European-style butter, such as Kerrygold or Plugrà, gives the butter—and thus the tart shell—a richer flavor than most American-style butters and I slightly prefer that extra rich taste.

Beyond the butterfat percentage, butter’s flavor is influenced by what the cows are eating. I prefer the more complex flavor of butter that comes from grass-fed cows over butter from grain-fed cows. Beyond that, my general rule (and the rule we all follow at Serious Eats) is to use unsalted butter when baking. That’s because the amount of salt used in salted butter can vary not just from brand to brand, but even from stick to stick. When using unsalted butter you eliminate the salt variable, and instead rely on a measured amount of salt in the dough.

Use Melted Butter Instead of Cold Butter for an Easier Tart Dough

In addition to lending its flavor, butter also contributes to the tart shell’s “shortness,” the crumbly texture you’ll find in shortbread and some other cookies. How you incorporate the butter into the dough determines the dough’s final texture. The classic pâte sucrée starts by creaming butter with sugar to create pockets of air that steam during baking to create a tart shell with a lighter texture.

With this simple tart dough, a lighter aerated dough is not the goal, so I skip the creaming and chilling steps associated with pâte sucrée and instead the butter is melted and stirred into the flour mixture by hand. The melted butter coats the flour evenly, which restricts gluten development to achieve an ideal short and tender tart crust. There’s also no need to chill the dough after mixing. (Genevieve uses this same trick in her easy shortbread.)

For Easier Shaping, Press the Dough Into the Pan Right After Mixing

Once the dough is mixed, it’s easiest to line the tart shell while the dough is still warm and malleable from the hot melted butter. Once it cools it will firm up and be harder to shape. The easiest way to line the tart shell is to simply pinch roughly one- to two-inch pieces of the dough off at a time and scatter them around the bottom and up the sides of the tart pan, pressing into an even layer as you go and making sure to press firmly into the fluted sides of the pan. I recommend using a small offset spatula or a large measuring cup to help smooth the bottom. 

For pressing the dough into the sides of the tart shell, your fingers are the best tool. The dough should be flush to the top edge of the pan. You can use a bench scraper or knife to trim off any excess dough.

Skip Blind Baking and Bake at a Steady Temperature

With classic preparation for French tart dough, as described above, cold butter is creamed and aerated to lighten the dough slightly as it bakes. To control the dough puffing when the empty tart shell is baked, most recipes rely on first blind baking the shell. This process suppresses any large air bubbles that may initially form in the dough. It seems a bit counterintuitive, right? Work really hard and take the time to keep the dough cold to create these light air pockets, only to then suppress them by weighing them down. You want the dough lightened, but still short and cookie-like. It’s a dance of control for a just right texture that is challenging to achieve.

We skip this entire cold butter/blind bake dance by starting with melted butter. When melted butter is used, the risk of steam bubbles puffing up the dough is minimized. There is no need to blind bake the crust. Sure, the final texture might be a bit more “short” than a classic pâte sucrée, but it is the sturdy melt-in-your-mouth cookie texture I wanted in my tart shell. To achieve an even light golden color from edge to edge, this recipe calls for baking the shell at a moderate baking temperature of 350℉ the entire time. You are basically baking one large cookie.

Add Optional Flavor to Your Tart Crust

Another perk to this easier approach to tart dough is that you can adapt the shell’s flavor as well. Below the main recipe are methods for how to make a brown butter crust, a chocolate crust, and a citrus crust. Whether you stick with the classic butter tart dough, or choose one of these flavor variations, I hope this one-bowl tart dough recipe is easy and approachable enough to inspire you to make more tarts. This recipe works well with our lemon tart recipe, or top it with lemon, chocolate, or vanilla pastry cream and your preferred sliced seasonal fruit for an impressive fruit tart.

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350℉ (175℃). In a large bowl, whisk flour, sugar, and salt together. Pour butter and water into the flour mixture and, using a flexible spatula, stir until well combined and a uniform dough is formed.

Using your hands, pinch off and distribute three-quarters of the dough over the bottom of a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Press dough to an even thickness in the bottom of the pan. Pinch the remaining dough into smaller pieces and scatter evenly around the edge of the pan, then press dough into fluted sides of the pan. Press dough to even thickness until sides are completely covered.

Place the lined tart pan on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet and bake until the crust is light golden brown and firm to touch, 25 to 35 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking. Set aside until ready to fill. 

Special Equipment

9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, wire rack, rimmed baking sheet

Tart Crust Flavor Variations

For a brown butter tart dough: In the first step, first melt the butter in small saucepan over medium-high heat, swirling saucepan occasionally, until foaming subsides. Cook, stirring and scraping bottom of saucepan with a spatula, until milk solids are dark golden brown and butter has nutty aroma, 1 to 3 minutes. Remove the saucepan from heat and add an additional tablespoon of water. (This compensates for the moisture lost while browning the butter.) When bubbling subsides, transfer the browned butter to a bowl and let cool slightly before pouring it into the flour mixture and proceeding with the recipe.

For a chocolate tart dough: Reduce the flour amount to 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour and add 1/4 cup Dutch processed cocoa powder to the flour mixture. When baking, it will be harder to notice the visual cues of doneness since the tart will already be dark brown before baking. Instead, rely on the time, smell, and touch to tell when the chocolate tart shell is properly baked. The shell should feel firm and crisp to the touch.

For a citrus-scented tart dough: Mince 3 teaspoons grated lemon, orange, or lime zest as fine as possible before whisking into the flour mixture in the first step of the recipe.

Make-Ahead and Storage

Cooled crust can be wrapped loosely in plastic wrap and stored at room temperature for up to 24 hours.