I love and often cook shortbread and pies from shortcrust pastry. Traditionally, they are made using margarine or butter. The latter I respect and, moreover, love. But if you often cook on it, it will be greasy (in every sense of the word). A lot has already been said about margarine and spreads, but I consider it useful to recall that the transgenic fats that they contain lead to an increase in the level of "bad" cholesterol in the blood, disrupt normal work cell membranes, contribute to the development of vascular diseases, etc. Therefore, I completely excluded these "products" from my kitchen. And now I make shortcrust pastry in vegetable oil. Completely safe, tasty and healthy. And what is important, even cheaper and faster than with margarine! And a couple of words about margarine. Margarine drinkers are more likely to develop angina, myocardial infarction, arrhythmias, and heart failure. It was invented in France to feed the army and the poor - a cheap product for sandwiches and fries. All this happened at the end of the century before last, people had different ideas about food and life. I want to warn you that products made from this dough are A LOT harder than those made from margarine or butter, but is it worth ruining your blood vessels for the sake of a small difference ???
Pastries, cakes, pies and rolls are far from the whole list of sweets that can be made from shortcrust pastry, the main properties of which - tenderness and friability - allow housewives to create real culinary masterpieces in the kitchen. For some, making a good shortcrust pastry is easy, while for some it takes time and experience to acquire culinary skills in the home production of this product.
When starting to knead shortcrust pastry, it should be remembered that an indispensable condition for obtaining a quality baking base is a sufficient amount of fat. Without them, the dough will not have a specific friability, thanks to which it got its name. In addition to fats, eggs play an important role in the recipe, and the quality of the dough will largely depend on the freshness of this product. The use of yolks alone when kneading will give the dough additional splendor and tenderness, and the flour intended for kneading must be of the highest grade and sifted twice. It is best to keep the fats in the refrigerator before kneading, otherwise, having softened, they will lag behind the bulk, and as a result, the dough will lose its elasticity, and the pastries will turn out tough.
Depending on its purpose, the product for baking can be fresh, lightly salted and sweet. The required amount of salt is usually determined by the hostess herself. The optimal thickness for rolling out the cake is from 6 to 10 mm; thinner cakes can dry out, and too thick cakes can go bumpy or bake unevenly. For the convenience of laying out the rolled out layer on a baking sheet, it is enough to sprinkle it with flour and, carefully wrapping the dough on a rolling pin or glass bottle, carefully dissolve it on the sheet starting from the top edge. In order for the dough not to stick to the baking sheet, it can also be lightly sprinkled with flour, having previously greased the entire area and slopes of the sheet with vegetable oil, after which lay out a layer of dough. If at the end of baking the cake still does not lag behind, you need to put a baking sheet on a large dipped in cold water fabric and let stand for 15 minutes, after which, by lightly hitting the sheet on the countertop, the cake can be easily removed from the mold.
The number of shortcrust pastry recipes is in the hundreds; we suggest you use some of them to prepare a delicious crumbly dessert.
Classic shortbread dough for pies and cookies
This is one of the easiest and fastest recipes to make. To knead the dough you will need:
- flour - 600 g;
- butter - 300 g;
- granulated sugar - 200 g;
- egg yolks - 4 pcs.;
- salt - 1 teaspoon.
- Sift the flour and mix it with salt and sugar.
- Grate the butter previously kept in the freezer on a coarse grater and add to the flour mixture.
- Lightly rub the ingredients with your hands or mix with a mixer and add the eggs.
- Knead the dough. It should be quite dense.
- Cover the dish with the dough with a napkin and leave in the refrigerator for 40-50 minutes.
- Roll out the cakes and bake at 230 degrees for 12-15 minutes.
The peculiarity of this test is that the sour cream present in the composition of the ingredients gives the consistency additional softness and elasticity. List of required products:
- flour - 600 g;
- butter or margarine - 300 g;
- egg yolks - 3 pcs.;
- medium fat sour cream - 200 g;
- granulated sugar - 4 tbsp. spoons;
- salt - 1 teaspoon;
- baking soda - ½ teaspoon.
- Sift the flour and add salt and sugar to it.
- Add chilled sour cream, egg yolks and soda. Mix with a mixer.
- Put the cold butter cut into pieces into the mixture and knead the dough thoroughly with your hands. This process should not take too long, otherwise the oil will overheat, which can damage the consistency and quality of the dough.
- Roll the dough into a ball, wrap with cling film and refrigerate for 40-50 minutes.
- Roll out the layer with a thickness of 6-7 mm, cut into circles according to the size of the baskets and, putting the dough into molds, gently press it against the walls and cut off the excess by pressing on the edges of the molds.
- Bake at 180 degrees for 7-10 minutes.
Cakes and cookies made from this dough have a light brown tint and a pleasant chocolate flavor. Required Ingredients:
- flour - 600 g;
- granulated sugar - 200 g;
- butter or margarine - 400 g;
- eggs - 5 pcs.;
- cocoa powder - 2 tbsp. spoons;
- salt - 1 teaspoon;
- baking soda - 1 teaspoon;
- citric acid - ½ teaspoon.
- Pour sugar, cocoa powder, salt, soda and citric acid into the sifted flour.
- Add eggs and mix the mass in a mixer.
- Spread the grated frozen butter over the entire mass and quickly knead the dough.
- Shape into a ball, place in a plastic bag and refrigerate for half an hour.
- Roll out the sheet and cut into shapes. Bake at 200 degrees for 7-10 minutes.
Once upon a time, I was completely confused in the concepts of “shortcake dough”, “sweet chopped”, “unsweetened chopped” - the set of products is one, but the cooking technology and the finished result are different. If you also want to understand, read carefully, I will quickly “unravel” you =)
So, flour, butter, yolks. Let's figure out what each ingredient is responsible for in the test.
Flour
For shortcrust pastry, you need to choose flour with a low protein content. In our reality, this is ordinary white flour of the highest grade. Part of the flour can be replaced with rice, rye, corn, buckwheat or whole grains, oatmeal, cocoa powder or ground nuts. This substitution will make the dough crumbly and complicate its taste. Gluten - translated from Latin (gluten) is glue. The less gluten in the flour, the more loose and crumbly the dough will turn out, so if you find flour with a low gluten content, grab it. It is more useful) And it will come in handy for crumbly dough! 
Butter
The oil should be of the highest quality in composition, with a high fat content (at least 82%), the proportion of oil in the composition is large enough, so its taste will affect the taste of the whole dough. In some recipes, butter is replaced with interior fat. This composition guarantees both density and friability at the same time.
Depending on the recipe, the ratio of flour and butter varies, usually in the 1:1 range (i.e., flour and butter are the same amount by weight). But some recipes give a 2:1 ratio (twice as much flour as butter). The more oil in the dough, the more tender and crumbly it turns out. It is very important to take this into account when choosing a recipe for an open pie: if the dough is very tender, then the heavy filling will not hold.
Granulated sugar
This is perhaps the only type of dough in which you can vary the amount of sugar to your taste without fear of spoiling its structure. In unsweetened pies, sugar in the dough can be completely abandoned. But there are also recipes in which the amount of sugar reaches 80% of the mass of all other ingredients. The main thing to remember is that excess sugar can make ready pie hard and overly ruddy.
Brown sugar will add a caramel flavor and aroma to baked goods. Sometimes granulated sugar is replaced with powdered sugar, with it the dough comes out softer and denser at the same time.
Eggs
They play the role of a liquid in the dough, along with water, milk, any fermented milk products used in recipes. Sometimes whole eggs are mixed in, often only the yolks or only the whites. It must be remembered that the yolk of an egg is fat, and the protein is water. Would you like a sweeter pastry? Use "fatty" liquid in the dough! That is, shortbread dough on water will always be denser and easier to taste than dough on yolk and milk.
Soda and baking powder
According to the rules, neither soda nor baking powder are placed in shortcrust pastry, since friability is ensured proper cooking, but some housewives insure themselves in this way, resorting to the help of baking powder. With baking powder, baking will surely succeed.
Salt
Salt must be added so that the dough is not bland and its taste manifests itself, use the finest salt you can find.
Shortcrust pastry with cream
The most delicate dough of all types of shortbread due to the fact that water is practically excluded in the composition. It is convenient to work with such a dough: it perfectly retains its shape when rolling out.
Shortcrust pastry with sour cream
To prepare this option, the entire volume of liquid according to the recipe is replaced with sour cream. The acid contained in sour cream softens the gluten, thereby adding friability and elasticity. Such a dough does not shrink much during baking, tasty and tender.
How to knead shortcrust pastry?
To know how to knead correctly, let's figure out what happens during kneading. Oil in the form of tiny particles is mixed with flour. Fat so quickly envelops the grains of flour that it does not allow gluten to develop. And since there is not enough liquid in the eggs and butter for the development of gluten, the dough is crumbly.
By by and large Three mixing methods are used:
- italian way
- cream method
- "chopped dough" method
But no matter which option you prefer, you need to remember the main thing: you can’t knead such a dough for a long time. After adding the liquid - collect the dough into a ball and you're done!
Butter shortbread dough for cakes, cookies, sweet pies
The dough obtained with this method of kneading is rightfully called shortbread. If you press on a piece of such a dough, it will crumble like sand into tiny crumbs. It can be kneaded with a spoon, using a mixer or a food processor. From such a test you can cook delicious.
Ingredients (for two pie bases):
- Flour - 250 g
- Butter - 180 g
- Sugar - 200 g
- Yolk - 1 pc.
- Egg - 1 pc.
- Salt - a pinch
Take the butter out of the fridge an hour before cooking so it is warm and pliable when kneading. Put the butter in a convenient bowl, add granulated sugar and rub with a spoon or spatula to a light cream. Stir the egg and yolk into the mixture and, stirring, achieve uniformity. Sift flour with salt and add to the rest of the ingredients. Knead the dough with quick movements. If you are working with a mixer, turn on the lowest speed. As soon as all the flour has crept into the dough, it is ready. The dough is so tender that without pre-cooling it is impossible to work with it.
This dough is perfectly stored in the freezer, it is very convenient to prepare it for future use.
The most durable shortbread dough for pies with a "lattice"
The dough according to this recipe is so strong and elastic that it can be easily used for sweet pies covered with a “lattice” of dough, for pastries with heavy fillings, for free-form pies. The temperature of the oil is very important here: cold, but not from the freezer. Cut into cubes, the butter should easily retain its shape, but when pressed with a knife, it should be easy to flatten.
For 1 semi-closed cake with a diameter of 24-26 cm:
- Flour - 400 g
- Fine granulated sugar or powdered sugar - 120 g
- Salt - 1/2 tsp
Cooking
The butter should be cut into cubes with sides of 1 cm. Sift all the dry ingredients into the bowl of a blender / mixer, add the chopped butter. Turn on the blender to the lowest speed and as you knead the dough, make sure that the oil is evenly distributed in the bowl. You can slightly increase the speed, but not to the maximum, otherwise the oil will heat up very much and soak the flour.
When all the butter particles are ground with flour, stop the mixer, clean the dough from the blender knives / mixer blades. Add the icing sugar/granulated sugar, let them mix into the butter-flour crumbs (this should take no more than a second).
Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead 2-3 times. Flatten the dough into a disc shape, wrap with cling film and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, up to a day.
Sweet chopped dough (sugar) for cookies and cakes
Products from such a dough are not only crumbly and tender, but also layered. The principle of preparation is that the flour is “chopped” or ground with butter until a crumb is formed, then the liquid is poured in and the dough is quickly kneaded. If a uniform fine crumb is formed, the dough will look like shortbread. If the size of the crumbs - the size of a pea or small beans - looks like a puff. Combining crumbs with pieces will give a sandy-layered structure.
Sweet chopped dough can be both unsweetened (breeze) and sweet (sugar).
Ingredients for 1 open cake with a diameter of 26-28 cm:
- Flour - 250 g
- Cold butter - 200 g
- Sugar - 100 g
- Yolks - 2 pcs
- Salt - 1/2 tsp
This type of dough can be used to prepare, for example,.
Chop the butter into pieces various shapes. Sift the flour onto a work surface or into a bowl, sprinkle with salt and sugar. Put the pieces of butter on the flour, grind with your fingertips or with a knife until you get a fine-grained mixture. Collect the crumbs in a slide, make a depression in the middle into which pour the yolk and 1 tbsp. l. milk. Gather the dough into a ball. If you can't do this, add 1 more tbsp. l. milk. Knead the dough 2-3 times to make it even. Shape into a ball, flatten into a disc, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes, preferably 4 hours.
Unsweetened chopped dough (breeze)
I prepare this type of dough according to this recipe:
- Flour - 150 g
- Butter at room temperature - 110 g
- Salt - 1/2 tsp
- Yolk - 1 pc.
- Cold milk / water - 1-2 tbsp. l.
It is very convenient to knead chopped dough in a food processor or in a blender bowl with a knife attachment. Pour the flour, salt into the bowl, cut the butter into small pieces. Turning on short impulses for 3-4 seconds, turn the contents of the bowl into crumbs. Add milk and yolk. Turn on the food processor until the dough comes together in a ball (usually no longer than 1 minute).
On the basis of such a test, one can prepare tasty pie - .
How to bake shortcrust pastry
There are two ways to bake: the first is to fill the sand base with the filling and bake everything together. The second - first we bake the base until half cooked, after that the filling is laid out on it, baked together with the dough together. Thanks to pre-baking, the dough does not become sticky from a moist and juicy filling.
To make the dough basket beautiful and regular in shape, the “blind baking” method is often used, that is, without filling, but under load. Usually this technique is used for open pies, to be sure that there will be a well-baked dough under the filling.
How to do it: Place baking paper slightly larger than the base on the dough base. Put the beans (beans, peas) for weighting and put in the oven to bake for 15-20 minutes at 190-200 C for 15-20 minutes. Then take out the mold, remove the weight of paper and return the mold to the oven for 5-7 minutes. The load allows the dough to keep its shape - the sides do not fall off, and the bottom does not rise.
The general rule is this: in recipes for pies with liquid fillings, it is advisable to pre-bake the basket. Pies with crumbly and thick fillings can be baked in one go.
I wish you only successful experiments in the kitchen! I hope the information on how to make shortcrust pastry will come in handy many times!
What could be tastier than tender crispy pastries that seem to melt in your mouth? These are the products made from shortcrust pastry, prepared according to our recipes. To make the finished dough crispy, ordinary flour is replaced with starch, and powdered sugar is added to the mixture instead of sugar. If flour is used as the main ingredient, then it is recommended to give preference to a product with a low gluten content. So the finished baking will turn out soft, crumbly and very tasty. Still don't know how to make shortcrust pastry yourself at home? Then read our article.
How to make classic shortcrust pastry
On the basis of such a test, housewives prepare various desserts, pies, pizzas, as well as open and closed pies.
Note: flour, butter and sugar are taken in a ratio of 3: 2: 1. Thanks to this formula, the shortbread dough acquires the necessary crumbly texture, due to which the pastry turns out to be melting in the mouth.
You will need:
- 1 pack of margarine;
- 300 g flour;
- 150 g of sugar;
- 2 eggs.
Cooking:
To knead the dough, you must prepare in advance a convenient large bowl with a deep bottom.
- To begin with, grind the chilled margarine with a grater, after which we combine it with sugar and eggs.
- Next, we begin to slowly introduce flour into the resulting mixture until a steep mass of a homogeneous consistency is obtained. We cover the finished dough with cling film or cellophane and leave it in the freezer for 30 minutes.
- We roll out the cooled mass into a cake with a thickness of no more than 1 cm. Using special forms, we cut out any figures you like from the dough.
- The shaped cookies are placed in baking molds and cooked in the oven at 200 ° C. After 15 minutes, we get the finished dessert.
Basic cookie recipe
Ingredients:
- flour - 1 tbsp.;
- oil - ½ pack;
- crushed sugar - ½ tbsp.;
- sunflower oil - 3 tbsp. l.;
- starch - 30 g;
- salt and vanillin - a pinch.
shortcrust pastry has long been a favorite product in many families. Despite the variety of pastries on store shelves, which are produced by both large confectionery factories and private mini-bakeries, homemade cookies are still always tastier and better. The basis for treats, that is, ready-made dough, can be easily bought in stores. This simplifies cooking, but, according to many caring mothers, it does not give confidence that baking can be offered to children without fear.
The history of the origin of shortcrust pastry goes back into the mists of time. The first mention of it can be traced back to the 12th century, and English confectioners came up with its recipe. At that time, products made from classic shortcrust pastry resembled crackers. The kind of delicacy familiar to us from such a dough was acquired only when sour cream, chicken eggs and baking powder were added to the batch. Beautiful shortcrust pastry was also a success in Russia. Interesting fact: the famous pastry chef of the 19th century, Elena Molokhovets, in her book "A Gift to Young Housewives" devoted an entire section to creating all kinds of sweets, and actually preparing this delicious and simple dough, and in the most variety of options. Even then, shortcrust pastry products were popular and loved.
Shortbread dough got its name due to its structure. The classic version of the product looks like the one in the photo. Products from such a semi-finished product crumble into small crumbs, like real sand. A real sand product according to GOST consists of only three components, but recently this semi-finished product has been improved by culinary specialists to produce baked goods with new flavors and qualities. Real and false shortbread dough is a very high-calorie product, which, if consumed excessively, leads to an increase in body weight. Nevertheless, the well-known French nutritionist Pierre Dukan found a way out of the situation in his famous system proper nutrition told how to make the perfect diet shortcrust pastry with a minimum of calories. By the way, this technique has become a favorite among many chefs.
Soft and tender dough in supermarkets can be found in the form of frozen layers of different thicknesses packed in polyethylene. It is stored exclusively in refrigerators and looks more than attractive. But still, not everyone willingly acquires it. The fact is that the price of the product, although not too high, still exceeds the cost of all the necessary ingredients. homemade dough it turns out cheaper and tastier, because you can easily experiment with its composition.
It is not difficult to prepare the dough, but this will require a little patience and knowledge of the specifics and technology of preparation. There are several secrets to getting a crumbly and truly shortcrust pastry, the essence of which we will definitely reveal in this article.
Composition and ingredients
The composition and ingredients of shortbread dough vary depending on the types, varieties and classification of the product, as well as the technology of its preparation. Distinguish the dough according to the following features:
- yeast and yeast-free;
- fresh (unsweetened), salty and sweet;
- with and without animal fats (vegetarian);
- regular and gluten free;
- classic (simple) and complex (sand-sour cream, sand-biscuit, sand-puff, sand-lemon and others).
Dividing the dough by composition, we can distinguish its following varieties:
- saber - suitable for baking classic sand products;
- breeze - harvesting without the use of sugar and other sweeteners;
- Sucre is fragile, sweet and very fatty.
By classifying the product by ingredients, the following main subspecies of dough can be distinguished:
- sour cream;
- vanilla;
- cottage cheese;
- potato;
- chocolate;
- lean (without eggs and animal fat);
- cheese;
- walnut;
- apple;
- pumpkin;
- on beer.
The basic recipes for the preparation of the workpiece are the following:
- French. It is used when kneading dough for quiche (Laurent pie) - open pastries with sweet berry or more satisfying fillings from boiled eggs, fish or meat products.
- Swiss. Perhaps this method is the simplest. This method of preparing shortcrust pastry is appreciated by vegetarians. It is being prepared for hastily and does not require knowledge of wisdom, and the components for it are ice water, vegetable oil, salt and water. From such a test fast food false puffs are obtained, inside which you can hide absolutely any filling.
- Vienna. The dough using this technology is used to make the world-famous and beloved Viennese biscuits with marmalade, as well as multilayer open pies. Such a delicacy is served in confectionery cafes with the famous Viennese coffee or fragrant black tea.
- Tatar. This dough is used to bake a national pie, which is unusual and very interesting name Gubad.
- Breton. The peculiarity of the test lies in the fact that it is prepared with fatty and very cold milk, which is used instead of butter, and vinegar, chicken eggs and separately yolks are also added to it. The filling for the classic pie is steamed prunes.
All of the above methods of preparing dough are today the basic technologies for preparing shortcrust pastry, and are used by pastry chefs both on an industrial scale and in home cooking.
Main Ingredients
The main ingredients for kneading a simple dough according to the original recipe are wheat flour, granulated sugar and butter. The flour must be of the highest grade, it is preferable to use beet sugar, and the butter must be very fatty and must be very frozen.
More recently, low-moisture margarine has been used in kneading in place of butter, and wheat bread flour is often substituted for whole grain flour. Most often, the dough is made on flour:
- rice;
- almond;
- peanut;
- oatmeal fine and medium grinding, as well as high quality flakes;
- rye.
In some types of shortcrust pastry, instead of flour, it is required at all potato starch, and among the list of ingredients needed for cooking in step-by-step recipes you can see:
- dairy and dairy products:
- milk;
- cream;
- sour cream;
- kefir;
- natural pure yogurt;
- condensed milk;
- cottage cheese and hard cheeses;
- water;
- cocoa powder and chocolate;
- cinnamon;
- walnuts and peanuts;
- powdered sugar;
- baking powder, soda and yeast;
- beer;
- lard;
- chicken eggs and their yolks;
- natural honey;
- mayonnaise;
- zest of citrus fruits, most often lemons, oranges, tangerines.
A huge number of options for filling shortcrust pastry products makes it easy and quick to diversify the menu even for the most inexperienced hostesses, and the tasty treats on the table will surely please the household.
Use in cooking
The use of shortcrust pastry in cooking can be found quite wide. Of course, all dishes prepared from it are pastries, but nevertheless their range is simply huge. The workpiece is used to prepare all kinds of desserts and snacks, simple and complex, for example:
- shaped cookies:
- hearts;
- "nuts" and "mushrooms" in molds;
- sticks and strips;
- droplets (kurabye) and "shells";
- "chrysanthemums" (through the grate of the meat grinder);
- rings and horseshoes;
- waffles;
- cheesecakes;
- sochnikov;
- shortbread;
- bagels;
- gingerbread;
- apple or pear share;
- buns;
- cupcakes
- cakes, letters, figurines and flowers for decoration, as well as "roses";
- baklava;
- kurnikov;
- lush puffs;
- sour cream;
- curd workers;
- strudel;
- fingers;
- rolls and "turbines";
- baskets with cream, meat pate or julienne;
- pretzels;
- cheesecakes;
- chaneg;
- tartlets;
- open and closed pies;
- pies;
- samsa;
- tarts with various fillings;
- tubules;
- croissants;
- white tank;
- rolls;
- bases for canapes or pizza;
- koloboks or "peaches";
- envelopes and triangles with all kinds of fillings;
- cake layers such as:
- cottage cheese "Napoleon";
- "Woodpile";
- "Hut";
- "Rotten Stump";
- "Curly Vanka";
- "Artemon";
- "Anthill";
- cakes.
False gingerbread with a multi-colored coating and pictures on their surface are baked from shortcrust pastry, and then Christmas cities are “built” from them. The most beautiful products are locks.
For filling and decorating shortcrust pastry products, they most often use:
- fruits:
- apples;
- pears;
- quince;
- berries and stone fruits:
- strawberries;
- lingonberries;
- currant;
- irgu;
- blueberries;
- viburnum;
- raspberries;
- cherries;
- blackberry
- cherries;
- plums;
- apricots;
- peaches;
- raisin;
- dried apricots;
- prunes;
- citrus;
- figs;
- bananas;
- canned and fresh pineapples;
- jam;
- jams;
- sorrel;
- rhubarb;
- marmalade;
- jelly;
- carrot;
- pumpkin;
- cabbage;
- mashed potatoes;
- cottage cheese;
- protein and custards, plain or flavored;
- meringue;
- poultry and animal meat and offal (liver, for example);
- chicken pate;
- fish and canned fish from saury, mackerel, trout,
- hard, soft (for example, marscapone, cheese or mozzarella) and processed cheeses;
- glaze.
All of the listed ingredients can either be added after the dough has already been baked until half cooked or ready, or participate in the baking process.
The dough itself can be divided by cooks according to the method of preparation. Most often, the product is classified as follows:
- dense or aspic;
- cooked in a "cold" way or custard;
- chopped, grated or whipped.
Depending on the technology and method of preparing the dough, baking powder, natural yeast and soda can be added to it. These components will not cause any particular harm, but such cookies are hardly suitable for children. Caring mothers study many recipes and reviews on them, but often they cannot choose one of the cooking options. We invite you to try the proven step by step recipe baking delicious and healthy cookies for kids and never look for better options again. About this wonderful and simple version read the next section.
And to all those who cook for older children, and also like to spoil their beloved men with sweets, we offer a video recipe for a delicious and very beautiful cake with chocolate and nut filling. Such an unusual beautiful flower will become a decoration of the table and will perfectly fit into the festive and everyday menu.
How to choose a quality product?
In this section of the article we want to tell you how to choose a quality product on the shelves.
The first thing you should pay attention to is the shelf life of the product. Naturally, the closer the date is to the time of its expiration, the less quality the baking from such a semi-finished product will be.
If the date suits you, then you should carefully examine the packaging. First of all, its integrity: the presence of punctures in the film may indicate inadequate quality. Then pay attention to the manufacturer: try to purchase blanks from manufacturers that indicate not only the composition and belonging to the quality certification system, but also do not hide the location of production. Manufacturers who care about their reputation are always open to consumers.
Carefully examine the product in the package. The dough should be smooth, without inclusions (unless they are specified in the recipe), shiny and evenly cut. There should be no noticeable condensation, no mold, no darkened edges of the dough in the package.
If possible, try to buy a product with ingredients that are familiar to you in the composition, and even better, learn how to make shortcrust pastry yourself!
How to make shortcrust pastry at home?
Making shortcrust pastry at home is actually very easy. In this section, we will try to reveal all the secrets and describe the most favorite methods of its preparation. For convenience, classic and modified cooking methods are collected in separate subsections. And the first, of course, will be a story about a real method that has been proven over the years and by housewives. The following sections show methods and recipes for the preparation of mock dough, which is used to bake most of the delicacies that are temptingly lying on store shelves. Do not forget to write down the recipe you like in your personal cookbook!
classic dough
All three manufacturing recipes described below are classic kneading methods, and the dough does not contain eggs, milk, sour cream, or other fatty ingredients or baking powder. According to this recipe, our grandmothers baked cookies, and it is he who is the most common.
We note right away that according to the first method, you will get an elastic and elastic dough that can be rolled out into a thin layer without effort. In the second case, the dough will turn out to be liquid, and products from it are formed exclusively with the help of a confectionery syringe.
So, to knead the classic cookie dough, you will need:
- one glass of wheat flour;
- one hundred and fifty grams of high-quality margarine or peasant butter;
- one tablespoon of ice water;
- one pinch of fine salt;
- a third cup of sugar or a quarter cup of powdered sugar.
The preparation of the dough consists of three main steps.
- Quickly mix cold butter, salt and sugar. This is best done by rubbing the butter on a grater and adding small portions of granulated sugar. An important condition: the product should not “float”. If you notice this, then immediately send the workpiece to the freezer, and then just proceed to the next step.
- To the creamy-sugar mass, first add water, then flour, and then quickly knead the dough. Shortbread dough does not need to be kneaded, so do not put too much effort into it. Long kneading can compact the dough, and then the baked goods will be too dry.
- Wrap the dough with cling film, then send the workpiece to the freezer for an hour, and after this time, divide it into pieces. Take them out of the refrigerator one at a time and roll them into a layer no more than 10 mm thick.
Use a cookie cutter or a knife to cut out the cookies, and then proceed to the last step - baking. To do this, lay out the finished figures on a baking sheet with parchment paper and bake for fifteen to twenty minutes in an oven heated to one hundred and sixty degrees. The readiness of the product is determined by the baked dough, but do not expect the dough to brown! If you are using a slow cooker for baking, then do not close the lid on it too tightly. Ignoring this advice will lead to the fact that the gathering steam will not allow the workpiece to cook well. Before serving or decorating baking, be sure to cool it to room temperature!
But everyone’s favorite “shells” or kurabie cookies cannot be made according to the above method, but all because they are squeezed onto a baking sheet from a pastry bag. This opportunity is provided by a more liquid dough, for the preparation of which cooks will need to have in stock:
- butter - 1 pack (200 grams);
- potato starch - four tablespoons;
- table salt - a pinch;
- granulated sugar - two thirds of a glass;
- baking flour of the highest grade - half a glass;
- vanilla sugar - 4 grams.
Dough kneading and subsequent molding should be carried out according to the following algorithm:
- Mix butter with vanilla and regular sugar, and then beat with a mixer, whisk or blender until airy.
- Mix flour and starch, and then add them to the sweet butter mass.
- Turn the mixer or blender to low speed mode, and then knead the dough with a density, like on pancakes.
- Pour the finished dough into pastry bag, and then deposit the cookies of the desired shape on a baking sheet with parchment.
- At the end, the sheets with blanks must be taken out for one hour in the cold, and after the time has elapsed, rearranged in an oven preheated to one hundred and eighty degrees Celsius.
- Baking cookies from shortcrust pastry lasts no more than twenty-five minutes.
Take note that the finished baking is not removed from the parchment until it cools, and its decoration begins no earlier than an hour after being removed from the paper. Good quality cookies according to this recipe will be obtained when using buckwheat, coconut, corn or rice flour.
The third among the basic recipes for making shortcrust pastry, as promised, we present an easy-to-use and uncomplicated recipe for a gluten-free "children's" dough. It is prepared without the usual flour for many. For one serving of healthy lean and at the same time tender dough, you need to prepare:
- vegetable (sunflower, corn or olive) oil - 100 ml;
- powdered sugar - 100 grams;
- gluten-free flour - 300 grams;
- lemon juice - 2 tablespoons.
The process of preparing healthy pastries, of course, is long, at first glance, but simple.
The first thing to do is to freeze the vegetable oil in the freezer. To achieve the desired consistency of the product, it is enough to keep it in the cold for eight hours. I would like to say that vegetable oil never completely freezes, so don't expect it to become a hard lump.
The most important step is mixing powdered sugar with thickened vegetable oil. This must be done very quickly so that the oil does not return to its original consistency. Upon completion of mixing, pour half the measured amount of flour into the resulting mass in fractional parts and knead the uncooked dough. The last step in kneading the dough is to add the lemon juice, the rest of the flour and punch down the finished product.
charm and hallmark This method of preparing dough is that it does not need proofing. That is why the finished dough is immediately cut, rolled out, cut out figures and placed in the oven to bake. The finished treat is cooled and stored in paper bags. Such cookies are suitable for diabetics, as well as those who have decided to adhere to food restrictions on religious fasting days.
With regard to whether it is possible to carry out the kneading not manually, I would like to note that neither dough mixer, no blender bowl, no food processor, no bread maker.
Recently, more and more often you can hear the statement that shortbread dough can be prepared without oil. In fact, this opinion is erroneous, because only butter, be it butter or vegetable, allows you to give a recognizable structure to baking, and it cannot be replaced in the recipe with cream, milk, sour cream, or any other high-fat dairy products. An alternative can only be mayonnaise or lard. Products based on these ingredients can have a specific flavor, and the dough itself is most often used to make snack pies or muffins with savory fillings. And it is kneaded with minimal or no sugar.
Butter dough
Butter shortcrust pastry in its composition has components used in kneading dough for ordinary wind pies and cake layers. Without fail, such a dough contains:
- chicken eggs and separately yolks - three and two, respectively;
- butter in half with lard - only two hundred grams;
- salt - a pinch;
- powdered sugar - half a glass;
- flour - three glasses;
- baking powder or soda - one teaspoon.
The kneading technique is slightly different from that described above. When making such a test, proceed as follows:
- The butter heated to room temperature is ground with chicken eggs kept warm for an hour, powdered sugar, and then the yolks are introduced.
- The flour is mixed with soda or baking powder, and then in small portions is introduced into the butter-egg mixture.
- The finished compacted dough is wrapped with a film and placed in the refrigerator for proofing, after which small pieces are separated and products of the desired shape are made.
The dough prepared according to this method is very elastic and pleasant to the touch, but it should not be warm for a long time, so the baking sheet with the products is placed in the oven without delay and kept there at a temperature of about one hundred and eighty degrees Celsius for twenty minutes. I would like to draw the attention of readers that products made from dough of this method of preparation differ in some characteristic features, for example, they are always ruddy, and also remain soft for a long time after baking.
Custard
Another one of unusual species shortcrust pastry is considered its custard variant. Such a product is used for making pies and closed pies. Even the most inexperienced housewives will master this kneading method, and often this particular cooking option becomes a favorite for many for many years.
For a serving of dough, which will make twelve small pies, you will need:
- baking flour - 350 grams;
- creamy margarine - 200 grams;
- granulated sugar - 3-4 tablespoons;
- water - 5 tablespoons;
- sunflower oil - 4 tablespoons;
- salt - to taste.
Brewing and subsequent kneading of the dough must be done in the same container, so it is advisable to choose a bowl with wide edges that can be heated on the stove.
- Boil water, and then add a pinch of salt and a norm of granulated sugar to it and dissolve them. After that, carefully pour the vegetable oil into the water and put the margarine grated on a coarse grater there.
- Bring water to a boil while stirring constantly.
- Wait until the margarine is completely dissolved, and then proceed to kneading. To do this, add flour in fractional parts to boiling water (without removing the container from the heat).
- Stir the dough with a spoon until the spoon turns, and then remove the bowl from the stove.
- Add the rest of the flour to the mass and knead a dense dough with your hands.
- Put the workpiece on the table, mash without flour, and then cover it with a dry towel. Let the dough cool down, and then roll it out and form products of the desired shape.
- Upon completion of the preparation of the selected flour products, immediately bake them.
In order for, for example, pies from such a dough to turn out shiny, be sure to grease them with yolk before placing them in the oven. chicken egg, whipped with a few drops of vegetable oil.
According to Dukan's recipe
Dough prepared according to Ducan's recipe is nothing supernatural. Baking from it can be made both ordinary white and colored. To obtain the desired color, natural dyes are added to the dough: carrot juice, beet juice or decoction, cocoa powder and other ingredients that can give a shade.
To prepare three servings of cookies, you will need to mix oat and wheat bran with powdered milk, salt and baking powder, and then combine them with cottage cheese, chicken egg and yolk. After that, with wet hands, you need to form a dense dough, wrap it in a film and send it to the cold for a couple of hours. You need to roll out such a dough in a film, because it sticks strongly to a rolling pin, and flour cannot be used for dusting.
The proportions of the ingredients are:
- oat bran - 8 tablespoons;
- wheat bran - 2 tablespoons;
- chicken egg (40 grams) - 1 piece;
- chicken egg yolk - 1 piece;
- cottage cheese - 70 grams;
- baking powder - 2 teaspoons;
- salt - to taste.
Such a dough can be used for baking vegetable pizza, tart with berry fillings, tartlets and even delicate baskets with protein cream.
How to cut?
We will tell you how to properly cut the dough for baking in this small section of the article. As such, products from real and false shortcrust pastry are not subject to modeling. One of the basic techniques for cutting dough has already been described in the section above, but it only applies to a liquid product. For a semi-finished product with a standard consistency, preparing the dough before baking consists in rolling and forming products of the desired shape and size.
The following devices are currently in use:
- molds of various subjects: stars, crescents, animals, flowers, cars and others;
- a curly knife that allows you to quickly create regular geometric shapes with wavy or zigzag edges;
- meat grinder with a regular or curly grate-nozzle.
When rolling out, be sure to dust the table with flour, otherwise the dough will stick and tear. The thickness of the rolling depends not only on the desired result. Real classic dough should never be more than one centimeter thick, while sour cream or shortbread-yeast should not be made too thin.
Kneading and rolling shortcrust pastry does not take much time. That is why it is most often cooked at home. Particular attention should be paid to the fact that when using molds, they should be placed as close as possible to each other when cutting. Otherwise, you will have to collect the leftovers many times, crush and roll them out. As a result, each subsequent batch of finished baking will become denser, and the cookies themselves will become hard and will not melt in your mouth.
How to store shortcrust pastry?
How to store shortcrust pastry is probably interesting to know for many novice confectioners. We note right away that there are no difficulties in this. Any of the subspecies of the product must be stored in the cold. That is why the finished dough, rolled into layers, is stored in refrigerators in grocery stores. In coolness, even yeast slows down its vital activity, and after getting into heat, they easily restore their qualities.
The best way to preserve shortbread dough for a long time is to freeze the product to a temperature of minus eighteen degrees Celsius, which corresponds to the marking of three snowflakes. With constant cold and humidity, the product can be stored for about six months.
You should know and remember that thawed dough must be used immediately, because re-freezing will degrade the quality. finished products, and the dough itself will become stiff and too elastic.
Homemade dough can be stored both in the form of layers (as in a store) and in portions. A mandatory requirement is wrapping the workpiece in several layers food film, which helps prevent the outer layer of the semi-finished product from drying out.
If the hostess does not intend to store the dough for a long time, then you should know that the dough will be suitable for baking for three days, provided that it is in a plastic bag on the top shelf of the refrigerator.
How to fix shortcrust pastry?
How to fix shortcrust pastry? It's pretty frequently asked question, the answer to which is needed not only for young chefs, but also for quite experienced housewives.
Let's start in order, and for convenience, we will draw up the existing knowledge in the form of a small plate.
|
Problem |
How to fix? |
|
|
Dough breaks when rolling |
Excess flour. |
Place the dough in a bowl, and then add melted or softened butter or sour cream to it in small pieces. |
|
The dough is too warm. |
Put the product in the refrigerator for a while and let it harden there. |
|
|
The dough is spreading (turned out liquid) |
Lack of flour |
Enter flour or starch in fractional parts and mix gently. |
|
The room is too hot. |
The optimum temperature for making dough is about 20 degrees Celsius. Knead in a cool room, and be sure to hide the finished dough for an hour in the refrigerator. |
|
|
The dough crumbles (crumbles) during kneading |
Too soft or warm margarine (butter, lard, cooking oil) is used. |
Refrigerate the fat base of the dough until desired temperature, and then, while kneading, add a few tablespoons of ice water to the dough. Be sure to sift the flour before kneading, then it will be better combined with butter or dairy products. |
|
The dough is too tight when cutting |
Mismatched proportions of ingredients. |
Try:
|
Another question regarding why the finished dough is bitter haunts many cooks. We will answer it too. This happens very rarely and occurs due to the inability to choose the right ingredients. Always remember that only fresh ingredients are needed to make a great dough: flour, butter, sour cream and other products. Also, always pay attention to the amount of vanillin in the recipe, which is used to give baked goods a pleasant aroma, and in no case put more than it should be. Remember that if you overdose on this flavoring, you risk getting a bittersweet cookie.
Benefit and harm
The benefits and harms of shortcrust pastry are determined by the composition of the product. Many recipes with a variety of ingredients allow you to saturate the human body with vitamins and minerals contained in the original ingredients.
Shortcrust pastry is very high in calories and therefore, with uncontrolled use, it can lead to speed dial weight. A large number of sugar can cause diabetes, and the high fat content of the product will adversely affect the functioning of the gallbladder and intestines.
In general, shortcrust pastry is an excellent solution for a family tea party, especially if it is made with your own hands. And yet, cutting cookies from such a delicate material is a wonderful opportunity to keep your favorite fidgets busy for a long time!
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