Shortcrust pastry for pies and cookies

Many people love shortbread dough for its friability, ease of preparation and speed of baking. And also for a large and varied selection of pastries from it. There are different types of shortcrust pastry and how to knead them.

Composition and methods of kneading

Basic ingredients for 400 g shortcrust pastry:

• wheat flour - 200 g
• granulated sugar - 100 g
• butter - 100 g
• egg yolk - 1 piece.

You can knead the dough in two ways.

First way: Mix chilled butter with dry ingredients and rub until crumbs form. Then knead quickly. Refrigerate the resulting dough.

Second way: Rub the softened butter with sugar until the butter dissolves. Now you can add flour and eggs. After kneading the dough, send it to the refrigerator. After 30-40 minutes, you can start molding products.

You can replace part of the flour with starch. Then the amount of flour should be reduced. Change the taste and aroma of baking by adding chopped nuts, cocoa, spices (cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg) to the dough. How about adding orange and lemon zest? Show your culinary imagination using various fillers.

If you see a whole egg in the ingredients for shortbread dough, it is better to replace it with yolks. In this case, shortbread dough becomes more crumbly and tender.

Types of shortcrust pastry

There are many different types of this test. The choice of one or another type depends on what shortbread dough products we want to cook. By adding additional ingredients to the main recipe, we get different types of dough.

The classic recipe for shortcrust pastry consists only of a mixture of flour, sugar and butter. For a bunch, adding a small amount of cold water is allowed (it is better to use purified water).

Adding eggs to this mixture, we get egg shortbread dough.

Sand dough is considered yeast-free. But adding yeast to the composition, we get a yeast shortcrust pastry. It turns out a kind of mix that has the characteristics of both types. Such a dough is soft and tender (like yeast), as well as crumbly and melting in the mouth (like a "sand" classic).

Lean shortbread dough will turn out if you add vegetable oil instead of butter. It turns out to be somewhat tougher, but is used in some types of pastries for the contrast effect of dough and juicy filling.

Using fermented milk products, knead sour cream shortbread dough and kefir. To prevent such a dough from coming out hard, add baking powder or soda (extinguishing it with vinegar or lemon juice).

You will get a wonderful cheese shortbread dough when you add hard cheese. To do this, take cheese and flour in a ratio of 1: 1. Before kneading the cheese dough, grate hard cheese on a grater. In such a test, a pinch of ground black pepper will not be superfluous.

Continuing the sour-milk theme, we suggest preparing shortbread dough with cottage cheese. This is a great choice if you have a fruit or berry filling. Light sourness of the curd dough and sweet juiciness of the filling... An enchanting combination in the best traditions of French culinary specialists.

Potato shortbread dough is made by adding potatoes to the dough. To do this, it is pre-boiled and rubbed on a grater. Put in the dough in a ratio of flour 1:1. Continue with the main recipe.

There is a special kind of shortcrust pastry. This is Brize dough. It is prepared without added sugar. There are also no eggs in Breeze. But despite this, it tastes very good. The consistency is dense (it does not use baking powder) and resembles puff. The universal recipe comes from France, where it is very popular.

Streusel is a confectionery crumb made from shortcrust pastry. To obtain it, the ingredients are mixed and ground into a "sand" mass. Thus, a large streusel crumb is obtained. And if you need a small streusel, grind a large crumb through a sieve.

In Germany, a pie of the same name is popular, in which part of the shortcrust pastry is laid out in a mold in the form of a base. A layer of filling is laid on top of the base, which is sprinkled with “sand chips” on top, i.e. streusel.

sand secrets

1. Before kneading shortcrust pastry, all products must be cooled. This is especially true of oil (it must be solid). If you add water, it should be ice cold.
2. To grind butter, you can use not only a knife. It is very convenient to rub hard butter on a coarse grater.
3. Try to knead the dough as quickly as possible. With prolonged contact of the hands with the dough, the fat (butter, margarine) included in its composition is melted. This leads to rigidity of finished products.
4. If you want a more crispy and crumbly dough, then add powdered sugar instead of sugar. Also, for this purpose, only egg yolks are put instead of eggs.
5. After kneading the dough, send it to the refrigerator. There it should be at least half an hour (and preferably 40-45 minutes).
6. Wrap the dough in cling film before putting it in the refrigerator. This will prevent the dough from absorbing foreign odors, and will also prevent it from winding out.
7. Let the dough rest at room temperature before rolling out. It will gain plasticity and roll out easier.
8. Roll out shortbread dough about 4-8 mm thick. If the layer is thicker, then it will not bake well.
9. The baking sheet or baking dish can be lubricated. The dough contains a sufficient amount of fat and it will not stick.
10. Prick the dough in several places with a fork before placing in the oven. This will prevent bubbles from appearing on the surface.
11. The oven temperature and baking time depend on the thickness of the dough and the type of baked goods. So for baskets and tartlets, the thickness of the dough is 3-4 mm. They are baked for 10-12 minutes at 230-240 degrees. All kinds of stars, rings, etc. 6-7 cm thick. Bake for 12-15 minutes at a temperature of 220-240 degrees. Cake layers and pie bases are 7-9 cm thick. They are baked at 210-220 degrees for 15-20 minutes.
12. You can make shortcrust pastry and store it in the refrigerator. The shelf life will be 7-10 days.

What to cook from shortcrust pastry

The number of types of shortcrust pastry is large and varied. You can use cookie dough. Make it in the form of various figures (stars, hearts, animals, etc.). Or cook.

A shortcrust pastry cake or pie will decorate any table. For cakes, sand cakes are baked, which are then smeared with cream. Using shortbread dough, you can cook pies with sweet (fruits, berries) or salty fillings. Unsweetened filling can be fish, meat, vegetable, mushroom. Thus, you can make a closed or open cake. But more often they bake open pies (such as tarte or quiche).

Some recipes:

Also, wonderful baskets and tartlets are made from shortcrust pastry. Fill them with various toppings. For example, baskets - fresh fruits or berries with whipped cream. And tartlets - pate, red or black caviar. You can also fill them with a small amount of salad (meat, crab).

Now you have become acquainted with various types of shortcrust pastry and learned many secrets of its preparation. Using the knowledge gained, you will be able to properly knead any shortbread dough and make delicious homemade cakes from it.