According to
Womens Weekly test kitchen director, Pamela Clark, Puff pastry is best for pastries, sausage rolls, sweet and savoury pies, turnovers and palmiers.
Puff pastry can generally be described as flaky, light and buttery, good for pies and pastries; while shortcrust pastry has a more crumbly, biscuit-like texture which is good for tart or quiche cases. Sweet puff pastry is literally puff pastry with sugar added to it, while sweet shortcrust pastry is not commercially available. When making a pie, many cooks use shortcrust on the bottom and puff pastry for the lid