Sweet Pastry

Sweet pastry, or pâte sucrée* , is a 'rich' pastry, in that it uses sugar, eggs, and more butter than shortcrust (basic) pastry.  The only problem with something that has so much eggs and sugar in it is that at room temperature it goes very soft and is a nightmare to roll (even after leaving it in the fridge it softens up as soon as you start to work it).  Often have I ended up abandoning the first or even second attempt at rolling it out, scraping it off the surface and steeling my resolve for another attempt at getting it to co-operate with a rolling pin.  This is exactly what you want to avoid; the secret to good pastry is not to overwork it, lest the gluten develop causing it go chewy once cooked.  So this recipe, which involves cutting the dough up into discs and pressing it into the tin, requires no faffing about with a rolling pin and gives you a better finish.  Happy days!