There is really no reason, it just is in a pastry because you need oil to make it
Any kind of shortening (fat) can be used for making pastry. Butter makes a melt-in-the-mouth delicious pastry.
Shortening gives the pastry a crisp, light texture.
There is a specific "pork pie " pastry, designed for the purpose. It is based on "hot water crust pastry".
Because suet is pork fat. It is the hard fat around the kidneys in pigs.
Matt langford
Fat and taste i think
fat!!!!
fat content
If you experiment with making pastry, you will find that cold fat makes the flakiest pastry. The reason can be found in the oven.Flaky pastry is made of many fine layers. In the oven, it is fat that separates the layers in the dough. As the water in the dough turns to steam and expands, it pushes these layers of dough apart, forming the characteristic blisters or flakes of good flaky pastry. The greater the number of layers, the flakier the final pastry will be.
Fat adds flavor and texture. Without fat it might crack
To obtain a flaky pastry. The hard fat (butter or lard) does not melt into the flour but creates many layers of fat separated by flour. These layers become flakes when the pastry is baked.
A pastry blender is used to incorporate fat into flour while still allowing lumps of the fat to remain. This allows the resulting baked good to develop layers where the fat melts during baking.