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Golden and crispy as you wish, pie crusts are very popular with the French. However, some should be put aside, according to the magazine 60 million consumers.
They are all ready, easy to decorate and cooked in a few minutes: pie crusts have many qualities. However, some should be avoided, according to the experts at 60 million consumers, who reviewed around forty references.
Butter pie crusts… but not only!
First observation made by the magazine’s experts: if all pie crusts – puff and shortcrust – are prepared with wheat flour, they are not all equal in terms of composition.
“Among the shortcrust pastry, 9 out of 13 references are butter-based. The same goes for the puff pastry versions. A good sign for the quality of the products as well as their proximity to the traditional recipe. For the others, the butter is replaced either by margarine (Monique Ranou), or, most often, by palm oil combined with rapeseed or sunflower oil, like several organic products (La Vie claire, Naturalia, Bio bleud)“, warns the consumer association.
In total, whether it is shortcrust or puff pastry, all contain between 3 and 11 ingredients.
The organic Monique Ranou references turn out to be the least healthy, since they contain 11 ingredients – including salt, alcohol vinegar (used here as a preservative), sugar, deactivated yeast and gluten (wheat) to improve the elasticity of the dough.e.
From a nutritional point of view, shortcrust and puff pastries are also particularly fatty (respectively 18.6 g/100 g and 20.5 g/100 g of lipids on average), the record being held by Picard puff pastry (24 g/100 g).
Which pie crusts get the worst ratings?
Drum roll… These are still the Monique Ranou organic references, sold in the “Intermarchés” supermarkets, and more precisely its “Shortcrust pastry ready to unroll“who gets the worst grade (6.5/20) and his”Gluten-free shortcrust pastry” with yellow flax flour from Bio bleud (7/20).
“The gluten-free Bio bleud shortcrust pastry contains various starches and flours (yellow flax, potato, corn, rice) and xanthan gum as a gluten substitute.“, comments the association.
So be careful not to trust “gluten-free” marketing slogans which do not guarantee that the products are better for your digestion or your health.
And what about puff pastry? It is still the pastry marketed by the Monique Ranou bio brand (Intermarché) that obtains the worst score (7/20), followed closely by the pure butter puff pastry from U bio (9/20).
NO to diets, YES to WW!
Just one piece of advice, which applies to all products purchased in supermarkets: read the labels carefully. The shorter the list of ingredients, the healthier the pie crust will be.
Be particularly careful to avoid toxic substances: preservatives, additives, colorings… A good pie crust only requires a few ingredients: butter, flour, salt and eggs!