La Pate Sucree (Sweet Dough)

This dough is pretty easy to make and great for tart shells. It tears a bit when trying to roll it out, but the tart shells we made still came out wonderfully. The filling for the tart is here. A few notes about pastry recipes: AP = all-purpose; We use scales to measure everything in ounces, so I am doing my best to make approximations for you in cups. If you want to have very accurate recipes use a scale.

La Pate Sucree

Servings: 3-10" tarts

Ingredients
14 oz butter, room temp
6 oz sugar (scant 3/4 cup)
1 egg, room temp
16 oz AP flour (between 3.25 and 3.5 cups)
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions
Cream butter and sugar together on low speed until smooth, but not aerated. In another bowl, mix the vanilla, salt and egg together. Gradually add the egg mixture to the creamed mixture until just well blended. Add the flour all at once and mix until uniformly combined, don't over mix. Portion, wrap and chill thoroughly (overnight is best). Once chilled, roll out dough to about 1/8in thick. Place in tart pan and gently press. Freeze for at least 15 minutes before baking, but preferably longer.
When ready to (blind) bake, preheat oven to 325F. It is best if you use foil and place beans in the tart shell so it doesn't bubble up while baking. Remove these after about 20 minutes to let the shell brown evenly. Fill what whatever you like.
This dough can be refrigerated for a few days or frozen for a few months if well wrapped.

Chef Amy critiquing our tarts... I got 100% :)