Shortcrust pastry substitutes

The half-hour version, by hand or in a food processor.

Best for

quiche and savoury tarts, fruit pies, sweet tart shells, pasties and pies with lids

250 g (2 cups) plain flour, 125 g (½ cup plus 1 tbsp) very cold cubed butter, ½ tsp salt, 3 to 4 tbsp ice water. Rub or pulse the butter into the flour until it looks like coarse breadcrumbs, add water a tablespoon at a time until it just clumps when squeezed, flatten into a disc, chill 30 minutes, roll. For sweet shortcrust add 2 tbsp sugar and 1 egg yolk and drop the water to 1 or 2 tbsp. Stop mixing the second it holds together.

Chilled or frozen supermarket shortcrust, which is the identical product.

Best for

everything shortcrust is for, weeknight quiche, pies and tarts

Not a substitute so much as the same ingredient. Let block pastry sit at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes before rolling or it cracks; ready-rolled sheets should be unrolled cold and used immediately. Ready-rolled is thinner than most people roll by hand, so it browns faster and is slightly more prone to leaking. The only real difference from homemade is that supermarket versions often use palm oil or a butter-margarine blend, which browns a little less and tastes less rich.

Laminated pastry, widely available frozen, and a completely acceptable stand-in for savoury baking.

Best for

quiche, savoury tarts and galettes, pie lids, sausage rolls

Flakier, much richer and it tastes great, but it behaves differently in three ways you need to plan for. It rises, so weigh it down properly with baking beans when blind baking or the base will balloon under a quiche. It shrinks back down the sides of a deep tin instead of standing up straight, so use a shallow tin or a flat galette. And it is wrong for a neat sweet tart shell that needs crisp vertical walls. Blind bake it before adding anything wet.

Press into the tin and bake 10 minutes at 180C / 350F, or just chill it hard.

Best for

cheesecake, chilled and no-bake tarts, key lime pie, banoffee pie

Faster than pastry, essentially foolproof, and often the better choice for a chilled dessert. Its limits are real: it cannot form a top crust or a pasty, it cannot survive a long bake with a wet filling in it, and it is sweeter and sandier than pastry rather than crisp and flaky. For anything baked more than about 25 minutes with liquid in it, use real pastry.

Stack buttered sheets into the tin, letting the edges fall raggedly over the rim.

Best for

savoury tarts and quiches, vegetable pies, lighter, lower-fat baking

Shatteringly crisp, much lighter and far lower in fat than shortcrust, and it looks striking. But filo leaks: the sheets have seams and tears, and a liquid custard will find them. Brush the assembled shell with beaten egg and bake it 5 minutes before adding any filling to seal it, and even then avoid very juicy fruit fillings. It also goes soft within an hour of coming out of the oven, so serve it promptly.

The honest answer when you do not want to make pastry at all.

Best for

crustless quiche and frittata, gluten-free eaters, weeknight cooking

A crustless quiche baked in a well-buttered dish at 170C / 340F is a proper recipe, not a compromise, and it is lighter and quicker. What you give up is portability and the contrast of crisp against soft, so it eats more like a baked custard than a tart. A pressed breadcrumb or grated-potato layer gives you something to slice against and a little browning, but neither is crisp the way pastry is, and both go soft in the fridge.