Without the sugar it would essentially be rich short crust with a smidge more butter wouldn't it? And do you really cream the butter for pastry rather than rub it in?

There are all kinds of things you can do with all kinds of dough, but the texture will change from sablée without the sugar. I never sweeten my regular American pie crust, and it works fine, but that's only a spoonful. There are too many variables involved in the simple ingredients of the dough for me to predict the outcome if you just omit the sugar. You can adjust the moisture content and fat to work it into being a useable dough even if it fails miserably to be what you were trying for. But as to "savoriness", even a sugar free crust tends to taste sweet unless it's made with 100% dark red wheat, which is bitter. You can add things to your dough to reinforce the savory, like rosemary or soy sauce or pepper. Or even just lemon zest which can go either way. You have an idea in mind. Go for it! See what you get. :)

Pâte sablée. Sable is sand. It's the method of rubbing the butter with the flour with a pinch of salt to get fine crumbs - the sand. Then you add the icing sugar, the egg and the water. If you removed the sugar, it wouldn't be the right proportions.

One of the nicest short pastries is an Ottolenghi recipe which is a bit wicked but very good. Something like 250g flour, 200g butter, 60g crème fraiche. Melts in the mouth; I wonder why LOL.

Appreciate the replies to my question, and of course plllog is right, I need to make it and see what happens. By a savoury pastry I really meant a non sweet pastry for savoury fillings.

Islay Corbel and floral, there are dozens of recipes on the net that describe pate Sablée as having the first step of creaming the butter and sugar even to describing the creaming (presumably not completely creamed) as the reason it is a sandy pastry.

There is of course also Pate Sucree, in which some recipes ask for the creaming of butter and sugar and other recipes say to use the rubbing in method. All quite confusing.

I found this recipe which looks like what I’m trying to achieve. Why do I try to reinvent the cooking wheel? I’m looking for a very soft pastry that doesn’t need rolling out, rather that you press the soft dough into the container. Pierre Herme doesn’t give it an actual pastry name and just calls it……….

Pierre Hermé’s Perfect Tart Dough

Adapted from Desserts by Pierre Hermé written by Dorie

Greenspan,

370g unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (90ml) milk, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 ½ cups (500g) all-purpose flour

Put the butter in the bowl of your KitchenAid fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on low speed until creamy. Add the milk, yolk, sugar and salt, and beat until the mixture is roughly blended. (At this point, the mixture will look curdled. Further mixing will not make it look any better, so stop after a minute or two.) With the mixer still on low, add the flour in three or four additions (if your mixer has a plastic pouring shield, use it). Add the flour steadily. There is no need to wait for the flour to be incorporated thoroughly after each addition. Mix just until the ingredients come together to form a soft, moist dough that doesn’t clean the sides of the bowl completely but does hold together. Don’t overdo it.

neely, the recipe looks like it would be fine for savory by omitting the sugar. I’ve often added herbs to pastry when making a savory pie or tart. Can be really good!

Why not just make pâte brisée?

Carol, pâte brisée is pretty much my go-to when it comes to a traditional crust. I’ve used Martha Stewart’s recipe for years for both sweet and savory fillings, using the herbs I mentioned for savory.

Apparently the one teaspoon of sugar doesn’t add to the flavour but is there to add deeper colour of the pastry.

Pate brisee is a tradiitional roll out shortcrust type. As I mentioned I’m wanting to try a really soft pastry that you press into the tart tin.

You place the chilled dough inside the pan. Pinch off pieces of dough and press them against the sides of the pan to reach about 1/8-inch thick and about 1/8 inch above the rim.

This is not my photo and I don’t know where I got it to thank them but shows what I’m trying to get to.

The Ottolengi recipe posted by Islay Corbel above is like that ^^^^

She posted it a few years ago and I’ve used it often since. When I get home I’ll post the exact proportions.

Thanks Colleen and IC. When I was testing shortcakes I kind of fell in love with cream dough. I should be receiving peaches tonight, still unsure of pie or tart, and not sure I was up for making frangipane and rolling out.. Cream crust Press in tart sounds great! Piert?

I've never tried a press-in pastry. I always learnt that pastry shouldn't be handled and kept chilled. I've seen it on English TV but not here. Still, always ready to learn something new.

Pâte brisée is just a shortcrust pastry to which you can add a spoon of sugar if you want. The higher proportion of butter the better LOL. Sometimes I add an egg....... I can't get too strung up about pastry. It's all good.

The BEST thing I learned recently ( and perhaps this is obvious to you!) is that when making tartelette, don't put the pastry circle IN the case but turn it upsidedown and put it on the outside. Simples! So much easier to unmold.

I have lovely little tartlet 2-part tins—which must be handled carefully because they're sharp, which makes taking off the excess a cinch, while you're making cresent cuts in your fingers. :) Unlike the ones I see the pros make on TV, I like my tart dough rolled really thin. I suppose it holds up better being slung around a bakery if it's thick, but then there's never enough filling, and there are those obnoxious thick corners. I like the Joy of Baking sweet crust for tarts. I don't know where it falls in the French pastry names. It does start with creaming and has an egg. But the peaches are here and need a day or two to soften. They seem mostly ripe. I hope they're sweet.

Neely, if you don't want even the spoon of sugar, you could try a little baking soda for browning. I don't think it would bother anything, but I'm not sure.

One thing I see often in recipes on to trim the excess after the case is baked. I can't understand how this works without shattering the rim. I always trim before baking which gives a really neat edge. I've also never made a press in dough. Rolling and draping seems infinitely less effort. And much neater.

You can do a savory sable if you use fresh grated parmesan to stand as your sand. Otherwise for a pat in tart crust, you can do a crust of oil or melted butter. You can make it savory or sweet as you like. And it can be easier to make/use than some other crusts.

So you get to a certain point when memory fails. I haven't had my memory jogged. After contemplation I still don't remember one thing about this, and it was only 6 years ago. The peaches (today) aren’t ready, but I was curious and Colleen is in a different when, so I thought I'd try to search up the recipe. The result: https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/4790075/islay-corbell-thank-you-for-the-tart-recipe#n=2

This is my thread! And tells of throwing together an apricot tart with IC's shell recipe including cream (which may or may not be the one Colleen mentioned.) No memory. None. I usually remember things given a few minutes and a prompt. Weird. Apparently the results were good...

“Apparently the one teaspoon of sugar doesn’t add to the flavour but is there to add deeper colour of the pastry.”

Neely, the pâte brisée recipe I use calls for 1 tsp. sugar. When I omit it for savory fillings there’s not much difference in crust color.

Just wanted to say there are lots of savory shortbread crust recipes online that can be pressed into the pan.