For a description of the Pastry Distributed Hash Table see Pastry (DHT).

Pastry is the name given to various kinds of dough made from ingredients such as flour, butter, shortening, baking powder and/or eggs that are rolled out thinly and used as the base for baked goods. Common pastry dishes include pies, tarts, and quiches.

A good pastry is light and airy, easily broken in the mouth (what is called 'short' eating), but firm enough to support the weight of the filling. The dough must be well mixed, but care must be taken not to overmix the pastry, which results in long gluten strands and toughens the pastry. Thus the manufacture of good pastry is something of a fine art.

As pastry must be baked to be edible, and pie fillings often do not need extra baking, many pie recipes involve blind-baking the pastry before the filling is added

Portuguese pastry is considered one of the best examples of the art in the world. The use of egg and chocolate creams (which the Portuguese brought to Europe approximately five centuries ago) in pastry recipes, helped developing the so called "religious cakes" in Portugal, and then pass these new "pastries" directly to France.

Small cakes, tarts and other sweet dishes involving pastry are often called 'pastries' after their primary ingredient, and bakers and chefs who specialise in producing them are called Pastry chefs.

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