Shortcrust pastry for pie and cookies: cooking secrets

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 the finished cake hard and overly rosy.

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 is placed in shortbread dough, since friability is ensured by proper preparation, 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.

Generally speaking, there are three mixing methods:

• 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 of 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).

Based on such a test, you can cook a delicious 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!