It is generally accepted that the art of making pastry crust is a technique passed on from generation to generation and cannot be readily learned from cookbooks and the like. Many people consider the art of pastry making to involve some form of "magic" and hence do not even attempt to make pies and pastries.
Many attempts have been made in the areas of premixed piecrust dough and frozen piecrust dough in the shape of the pie shell. It is generally accepted that frozen piecrusts cannot compete with the quality of fresh piecrusts. In the field of premixed doughs, U.S. Pat. No. 4,645,673 discloses frozen pizza dough which is of a bread dough composition distinct from pastry dough compositions. The dough is made up of a specific mixture of high protein and low protein wheat flours and contains between 10% to 17% by weight of solid fat pieces preferably in the form of flakes. The flakes of fat have a melting point in the range of 118.degree. to 130.degree. F., in accordance with the Wiley melting method. The solid fat pieces remain in the dough until the dough goes into the oven for baking. Pizza toppings are applied to the dough when laid out in the form of a pizza shell and the food product is then frozen. It has been found in this patent that, by the use of solid fat pieces in the form of flakes, the resultant pizza dough, when baked, had very flaky, tender and open crust. There are, however, several technical distinctions between processes for making pizza bread-like dough and piecrust dough.