How much sugar can I use in a long-baking tart dough w/o risking burning?

I'm going to make two different tarts that each bake for 45 minutes. I like the America's Test Kitchen tart dough which is a shortbread cookie dough, but one recipe specifies a pate brisee (no sugar) to avoid burning during the long baking time. The other specifies a pate sablee which seems to mean a pate brisee or a sweetened one (pate sucree). My choices are (1) make a brisee; (2) make a sucree (uses 30g sugar); (3) do the ATK tart dough but reduce the sugar.

If I reduce the (confectioners') sugar from 2/3 cup to 1/3 cup in the ATK recipe, would that be enough to prevent burning or I should I reduce it further? The sucree is probably safe since it uses 30g of (regular) sugar which is much less than 1/3 cup. It's possible the two tart fillings are very sweet and would benefit from an unsweetened dough, but I've used the ATK recipe for many different tarts and people love it. It contains vanilla. Would it be OK to add that to a pate brisee or a pate sucree?

• Posted by: alng4768
• August 13, 2012

• 2861 views
• 1 Comment

• tart dough