Can you use shortcrust pastry for pizzas?

Answer 1

Yes, you may use short crust pastry as a base for Pizza. In fact, it is much healthier and convenient to use short crust pastry than finding a pizza dough. Using of short crust pastry do not need to blind bake it, however you have to brush it with egg to give the crust a glazing . You may also consider to roll up the edge to make it like a pizza dough puffing up, similarly brush the edge of the short crust pastry to give the extra crunch and glaze.

Answer 2

Shortcrust pastry is very different to scone dough; pastry has far more fat proportionately, and not enough liquid. Scones also require an egg in the batter, and raising agents (sodium bicarbonate etc..) hence shortcrust pastry mix cannot be used for making scones.

Answer 3

I would say no, as shortbread is a type of soft kinda biscuit pastry, but shortcrust i think is used for pies, so unless you pie crust cookies i would say no =P

A typical shortbread mixture differs to shortcrust pastry in the fact that shortbread is constructed so that the dough stays really crumbly until it is pressed by hand into the required tin/mold. (Before shortbread 'dough' is molded it should really resemble crumble topping rather than a dough). Also, shortbread mix contains sugar whereas normal shortcrust pastry never contains sugar.

Shortcrust pastry has a marginally higher water content than shortbread so that the pastry is actually a 'dough' as opposed to a 'crumble'. This allows it to be rolled out as opposed to pressed into shape.

It is also worth noting that although shortbread is traditionally made from flour, butter, sugar and water, it is becoming more common to use some cornflour in the recipe to aid crumblyness/ protect against "overworking" the dough (which allows gluten strands to form and result in a non-crumbly biscuit).

This means that the main reason why it would be difficult to substitute shortbread mix for shortcrust pastry is that it does not roll out well, and if you were to try and press it into a tart ring for baking you would have to ensure the tin was lined very thickly, to reduce the propensity for it to crack and crumble. It would probably result in an inelegant looking tart shell.