The purpose of cutting butter into dry ingredients
There are 2 reasons why we cut bits of butter into dry ingredients:
- Coat the flour with fat. That way it can’t react with the wet ingredients and form gluten. This keeps the texture light and flaky instead of crumbly and tough.
- Pockets of water turn to steam. When bits of butter in the dough hit the heat of the oven, the water in the butter turns to steam and pushes the layers of dough upward, creating even more flakiness.
