Shortcrust pastry calculator
Shortcrust for tart shells and sheet cakes: flour, butter, icing sugar and yolks, with no water and nothing to raise it.
Total hydration counts the water inside the eggs, milk and butter.
Shortcrust holds together on fat rather than water. Butter coats the flour and stops it forming gluten, so the less the dough is worked and the colder it stays, the shorter it eats.
How it works
Three parts flour, two butter, one sugar
The classic ratio is 300 g flour, 200 g butter, 100 g sugar. AniaGotuje runs close to it: 320 g flour, 200 g butter, 100 g icing sugar and two yolks. Moje Wypieki prefers 2:1 against the fat instead, which is 50% — less butter gives a firmer shell that stands up to a wet filling.
Icing sugar, not granulated
There is no water in shortcrust for sugar to dissolve into. Granulated crystals stay whole until they melt in the oven, and leave small holes behind. Icing sugar disperses through the fat instead, which is why it sits here as its own ingredient rather than as plain sugar.
Chilled twice
Half an hour in the fridge after mixing, then another hour or two once the tin is lined. Cold dough meets a hot oven and the butter melts only after the structure has begun to set. Warm dough slides down the sides of the tin before anything bakes.
Sources & methodology
Every percentage in this calculator traces to the published sources below — nothing is invented. Where respected sources disagree, the default sits inside the documented range.
- AniaGotuje — ciasto kruche — The anchor: 320 g flour / 200 g butter (62.5%) / 100 g icing sugar (31%) / 2 medium yolks, read as 36 g. Fills a 24×24 cm tray.
- Moje Wypieki — jak upiec perfekcyjne ciasto kruche — Where the butter band comes from: the classic 3:2:1 is 67% butter, and the author states she prefers 2:1, which is 50%.
- Kwestia Smaku — ciasto kruche słodkie — The yolk-rich end: 2 yolks to 150 g of flour (24%) with 100 g of butter, for a thin 23 cm tart shell.
FAQ
How much dough for which tin?
656 g covers a 24×24 cm tray or a 24–26 cm round tin. Kwestia Smaku lines a 23 cm tart with half of that: 150 g flour, 100 g butter, two yolks.
Can I leave the yolks out?
You can; it eats sandier. Yolk brings fat and a little water, so the dough comes together more willingly and cracks less under the pin. Kwestia Smaku goes the other way and puts two yolks into 150 g of flour, twice what is here.
Why does the shell shrink?
Gluten developed and is pulling back in the oven. Mixing only until the dough comes together, and chilling it for longer, does more here than weighing the base down with beans.
Which flour?
AniaGotuje splits it half and half: plain flour and krupczatka, the coarse Polish grade. Coarser flour takes up water more slowly and bakes sandier; on cake flour alone the pastry is smoother and tighter.
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