Lately I've been fiddling with recipes out of Asian language cook books. I tend to like the flavor of Asian-style pastries over Western ones, so I figured I would try my hand at making them.

Many of their pastries are flaky and so delicately tender that sometimes they crumble at a touch.

Naturally this calls for shortening, butter, lard and other kinds of fats quite often.

Now I don't know whether these Asian cookbooks just don't have as high a standard of editing as ones we typically see in our bookstores in the U.S., but I often find the recipes seem deceptively easy but the dough is rather finicky when you start to work with it. "Roll and cut" it says, but the dough only stretches and falls apart.

Because of the high amount of fat, even chilling sometimes doesn't help make the dough any easier to work with.
The dough remains almost pastelike.

Do you guys have any experience working with short doughs like these and have any tips?