Shortbread dough is used to make sweet and savory pies, cookies, basket cakes, tartlets. The name it received for its friability. Properly cooked, it turns out soft, tender, crumbling in the mouth. To obtain such a result, it is not enough to find a suitable recipe - you need to know how to make shortbread dough correctly. The technology of its preparation does not differ in high complexity, but has many nuances, without knowledge of which it is impossible to obtain the desired result.
Cooking Features
To make tasty, tender and crumbly puff pastry, you need to know a few secrets. Given these subtleties, even an aspiring cook will cope with the task.
- The friability of the dough provides fats. They seem to envelop the flour, not allowing it to stick together. It's about butter or margarine. Margarine makes the dough a little looser than butter, butter makes it soft and pliable. For optimal results, you can mix butter and margarine in a 1: 1 ratio. If you are confused by the dubious benefits of using margarine, you can replace margarine with butter in all recipes, this will not greatly affect the result.
- Flour for the preparation of short pastry is chosen with an average content of gluten. If this figure is unknown to you, it will not hurt to replace 1-2 spoons of flour with a similar amount of starch. Then the dough will come out crisp.
- Eggs are not always used for making shortbread dough, and even if they are used, they are often not entirely. The yolks fasten the dough components, without making it more dense, so usually they are put into shortbread dough only.
- In order for the sweet pastry to have a more pronounced taste, not only sugar but also a pinch of salt is added to it. On the contrary, put some sugar in a savory dough - no more than a teaspoon in a glass of flour.
- Sugar for the dough is better to use crystalline. Experienced cooks are advised to replace it with powdered sugar. It can be made independently, grinding the sugar in a coffee grinder or grinding it with a blender.
- Products for making shortcrust dough use only cold ones, it is also recommended to cool kitchen equipment. The main task is to prevent the oil from melting. To do this, they also try to minimize the contact of the dough with warm palms. The butter is chopped with a knife, the ingredients are ground with a whisk, stirred with a spoon. It is not forbidden to use kitchen appliances. Hands dough can only be kneaded at the last stage, doing it as quickly as possible.
- If the dough is kneaded for too long, it will become dense. Baking out of it will not be enough crumbly.
- After kneading, the shortbread dough is refrigerated, cooled for at least 30 minutes, sometimes longer.
- The oven is preheated only after the dough has been completed, so that it does not become too hot in the kitchen. While kneading shortcrust dough, the temperature in the kitchen is kept a little lower than room temperature.
Sand dough can be placed only in a hot oven. To bake products from it is necessary at a temperature of at least 200 degrees. It is possible to make it higher at the first stage, then, on the contrary, to lower it. So that the bottom of the shortbread dough does not rise when baking, it is punctured with a fork or toothpick before being placed in the oven in several places.
Chopped shortbread dough
Composition:
- wheat flour - 0, 3 kg;
- butter - 0, 2 kg;
- water - 50-100 ml;
- sugar - 5 g for a non-sweet cake, 50 g for a sweet;
- salt - a pinch.
Method of preparation:
- Cool boiled water to room temperature, put it in the fridge - to make chopped shortbread dough, it should be ice cold.
- Cool the kitchen utensils you plan to use to make the dough.
- Cut butter into small cubes, put them in the freezer for 10-15 minutes.
- Sift flour. This manipulation is required. It is necessary not only to clean the flour from small litter, but also to saturate it with oxygen, so that it becomes friable and light.
- Mix flour with salt and sugar.
- Spread slices of cooled butter on flour, sprinkle with flour.
- Chop the butter with flour with a large knife (or two knives) until you get flour crumbs.
- While pouring ice water in small portions and stirring the dough, collect it in a room.
- Wrap the dough with cling film so that it does not become chapped and put it in the fridge.
It will be possible to use the dough no earlier than in half an hour. It is well suited for sweet and savory pies, including for quiche, kurnik.
Delicate shortbread dough (with yolks)
Composition:
- wheat flour - 0, 25 kg;
- butter - 100 g;
- egg yolks - 2 pcs. (or one whole egg);
- sugar - 100 g;
- salt - a pinch.
Method of preparation:
- Butter, taken out of the refrigerator, grind grated with large holes.
- Put sugar and salt in butter, rub them with a spoon.
- Add egg yolks or whole egg to butter. In the first case, the dough will be more tender. Stir thoroughly with a spatula to obtain a uniform composition, or whisk using a blender or mixer.
- Sift flour. Add it to the rest of the ingredients, knead the dough.
- After forming a bun from the dough, place it in a plastic bag and send it to the refrigerator for 30-60 minutes.
After a specified time, the dough can be rolled out and made into confectionery. It is ideal for cake basket or sweet cake. You can bake out of it and crumbly cookies.
Shortcake dough for tartlets on margarine and sour cream
Composition:
- wheat flour - 0, 35 kg;
- egg yolk - 1 pc .;
- low-fat sour cream - 125 ml;
- margarine - 50 g;
- soda - a pinch;
- salt - a pinch;
- sugar - 5 g.
Method of preparation:
- Remove the margarine from the refrigerator 15-20 minutes before the dough is cooked so that it can soften slightly.
- Add sugar and salt to margarine, mash with a spoon.
- Add cold sour cream, beat the products with a mixer.
- Add the egg yolk and soda, whisk again.
- Combine with the sifted flour, using a special mixer nozzle or manually knead the dough.
- Chill the dough for an hour.
The dough made according to this recipe is very plastic, it is easy to form tartlets or other products.
Curd shortbread dough
Composition:
- cottage cheese - 100 g;
- butter - 100 g;
- wheat flour - 180 g;
- sugar - 5 g;
- salt - a pinch;
- soda - a pinch.
Method of preparation:
- Curd cheese through a sieve or roll through a meat grinder.
- Rub the cooled butter, combine with cottage cheese, stir them with a fork.
- Add sifted flour, salt, sugar and soda. Stir. Put the dough on a floured table and quickly knead it with your hands.
The dough must be put in a bag and cooled for an hour. It is universal: suitable for making sweet and savory pastries. If the amount of sugar in the recipe is increased to 50 g, then the cottage cheese dough will make delicious cookies. For aroma, you can add half a teaspoon of lemon or orange zest.
Shortbread dough in mayonnaise for cookies
Composition:
- wheat flour - 0.5 kg;
- butter - 0, 2 kg;
- mayonnaise - 0, 2 l;
- sugar - 0, 2 kg;
- chicken egg - 1 pc .;
- soda - 3 g;
- lemon juice - 5 ml;
- vanillin - at the tip of the knife.
Method of preparation:
- Break an egg in a bowl, add sugar to it. Spread food with a whisk.
- Add mayonnaise, whisk it together with the egg mass, achieving a homogeneous composition.
- Soda extinguish lemon juice, add to the resulting slurry. There, add salt and vanilla. Mix well.
- Enter the sifted flour, knead the dough.
- Remove the butter from the refrigerator, rub it directly into the container with the dough. Knead it quickly with your hands.
It remains to cool the dough for an hour, divide it into small balls, flatten them, put a pattern on them with a fork and bake in a preheated oven until cooked.
Sweet shortbread dough on sour cream and butter
Composition:
- wheat flour - 0.5 kg;
- sour cream - 100 ml;
- butter - 0, 2 kg;
- sugar - 60 g;
- salt - a large shchipot;
- chicken egg - 1 pc .;
- soda - a large pinch.
Method of preparation:
- Sift flour, combine it with salt and soda.
- Cut butter into pieces, return for 10-15 minutes to the refrigerator.
- In a clean bowl, break an egg, rub it with sugar.
- Add sour cream to the egg mass, whisk the products with a whisk or a mixer. Temporarily put in the fridge.
- Remove the oil, spread it on top of the dry mixture. Chop with a knife to form flour crumbs.
- Connect the flour crumb to the liquid base. Stir products with a mixer. Complete the kneading process with your hands.
- Make a ball out of dough, place it in a bag and put it in the fridge for at least half an hour.
From the dough made according to this recipe, you can make a cake, biscuit, a base for sweet tartlets.
Sand dough with cheese
Composition:
- flour - 0, 2 kg;
- margarine or butter - 150 g;
- chicken egg - 1 pc .;
- hard cheese - 0, 2 kg;
- salt - a pinch;
- sugar - a pinch.
Method of preparation:
- Cheese, grate as little as possible and put in the refrigerator.
- Sift flour, mix with salt and sugar.
- In the center of the flour heap make a groove. Break an egg into it. Stir the products with a spoon.
- Add the cooled cheese, rub the butter or margarine taken directly from the refrigerator. Quickly knead the dough and put it in the fridge for an hour.
A delicious base for unsweetened cake and original baskets for salad will come out from shortbread dough with cheese.
Shortbread dough with potatoes
Composition:
- wheat flour - 0, 2 kg;
- chicken egg - 1 pc .;
- boiled potatoes - 0, 2 kg;
- butter - 150 g;
- sugar - 5 g;
- salt - 4 g.
Method of preparation:
- Combine sifted flour with sugar and salt.
- Making a hole in the center, break an egg into it. Stir.
- Mash the boiled and soft cooled potatoes.
- Add it to the dough.
- Oil finely chopped, add to the rest of the ingredients.
- Beat the products using a dough mixer.
- Form a ball of dough and cool it for an hour.
Such shortbread dough is ideal for any savory pies and tartlets.
Shortbread dough is used for making pies, cookies, tartlets. Its advantage is a crumbly structure. You can knead it according to different recipes, it is only important not to violate the general principles of preparation. The main one is the use of cold foods.
