The most common type of sweet pastry in British recipes is pâte à foncer. If you’ve ever made a mince pie this is probably the type of pastry you’ve used! This is because pâte à foncer is perfect for any recipes where the filling is cooked in the oven, such as mince pies, apple pies, lemon tarts etc. Pâte à foncer is made just like shortcrust pastry (also known as pâte brisée), except with the addition of a small amount of sugar and an egg or egg yolk. The sugar is mixed with the flour, and then the butter is cut into this mixture by hand or with a food processor. An egg yolk and a little bit of water is used to bring the dough together. It’s a very forgiving dough, and often doesn’t even need to be blind baked.

Pâte sucrée is almost the reverse of a standard shortcrust pastry recipe. To make pâte sucrée, the butter and sugar are first creamed together, as if you were making a cake, and then the flour is added to this mixture. This type of pastry sometimes has ground almonds included, which help give it a pleasantly short and crumbly texture. It generally uses more sugar and often more butter than pâte à foncer, and also sometimes uses an egg yolk. It’s most popular for tart shells where the filling isn’t cooked, like French-style strawberry tarts, which have a base of crème pâtissière and a topping of fresh strawberries.

The final type of sweet pastry is pâte sablée. Sablée means ‘sandy’ in French. This refers to both the ‘sablage’ or sanding technique used to make this pastry, and also its very fine, sandy texture. This type of pastry uses even more butter and sugar than pâte sucrée, which gives it a very soft texture. It’s made by cutting butter into flour and sugar, like pâte brisée.

Although very easy to make, pâte sablée is infamously finicky to handle. It’s often pressed into tart tins, as it’s too soft to roll out. It’s also used for making sablé biscuits, like sablé Breton. As with pâte sucrée, it’s typically used for tarts where the filling just needs to set in the fridge.

Resting pastry helps the gluten relax, and makes the pastry easier to roll out. It can also help stop the pastry from shrinking during baking. Resting overnight will minimise shrinkage during baking the most, but if you’re short on time just make sure it’s in the fridge long enough to firm up properly and become nicely chilled (at least 30–60 minutes).

It can also help to chill the pastry dough in the tart tin before baking. When you line a tin with pastry, make sure to add at least 1 cm of overhang, as the pastry will shrink as it chills and in the oven.

This sweet pastry recipe is quite soft, and so is good for fillings which aren't cooked in the pastry or where the dough is blind-baked very thoroughly before any filling is added. This strawberry tart from Pascal Aussignac is a great example, as is this stunning molten chocolate and salted caramel tart from Robert Chambers.

Sweet pastry can be made in advance and then kept tightly wrapped in the fridge for several days. You can also bake tart shells in advance, if you're not baking them again after adding the filling. Simply bake them fully and then wrap well in cling film, and store in an airtight box. They will go soft eventually, but should keep well-wrapped for at least a day.

Tart shells can also be fully baked and frozen, tightly wrapped, for about 1 month.

Sweet pastry freezes very well. Simply wrap it tightly and then freeze in a block. It will keep for several months, although if not very tightly wrapped over time it can start to get freezer burn. You can also freeze sweet pastry after shaping it and pressing it into a tin – this is useful if you want to prepare a tart in advance.

Take the frozen pastry out of the freezer and transfer to the fridge 24 hours before you want to use it.