How to make shortbread dough at home. Shortcrust pastry - all the secrets of perfect shortcrust pastry

Hello, our dear readers and guests of our site. Today I’ll tell you all the secrets of successful shortcrust pastry. Depending on what product you will bake, you will choose the recipe you need.

I’ll tell you frankly, I wrote this post for a long time, a very long time, because I got confused. I collected information on the Internet, checked it in books and even from French bloggers. I tried to structure it so as not to miss anything. The dough seems like dough - everything is simple, not like yeast, but it’s the methods of preparation that led me into difficulty.

Have you noticed in the recipes how to prepare shortcrust pastry, two different options are described everywhere:

1. Grind the softened butter with sugar and eggs, then add flour.
2. Cold butter is ground (chopped) with flour, and then eggs beaten with sugar are added.

Sometimes we prepare the same recipe in these different ways. Do your baked goods end up the same? Let's figure it out.

So the first option is shortbread dough, and the second option is considered chopped dough.

But let's start with the basics of cooking. We will remember and sort out the completely obvious properties of products that are known to you without me and there will be nothing new here. The point is to further learn how to apply this knowledge about preparing the perfect shortcrust pastry.

Shortbread dough should be crumbly. How to achieve this? You need to know a little about which component in the test has which properties.

• Flour. Flour, as you know, can be different, but what is important to us here is the amount of gluten, gluten. Translated from Latin, gluten is glue. The less it is, the looser the dough will be. Sometimes starch is added to flour. It is possible to add another type of flour, for example, oatmeal cookies contain an admixture of oatmeal.
• Oil. Butter is fat; it prevents the flour from sticking together. The higher quality and fattier the oil, the tastier the baked goods will be. Oil in some recipes is replaced with cooking fat (such as lard). Previously, such fat was sold on the same basis as margarine and in the same 250 g packages, but now I have not seen it anywhere in stores. Can butter be replaced with margarine? Probably possible. And in Soviet times, all the recipes in culinary notebooks were made with margarine. See for yourself according to your financial capabilities, but I still recommend using butter. Do not forget that margarine is a combination of fats that are difficult to digest by the body and are poorly excreted from it.
• Eggs and water. This is the link between flour and butter. Depending on the recipe, it is added in a certain amount so that the mass is kneaded into dough, otherwise everything will not come together. The white is like a glue, so for a more sandy effect it is better to use only the yolks.
• Sugar. Since the dough must be prepared quickly so that the butter does not have time to melt, it is best to replace it with powdered sugar. Another option is to grind with eggs until the crystals are completely dissolved.
• Salt. Salt must be present in any dough, even in sweet ones, a small pinch is enough to highlight the taste, salt brings out the taste of sugar, makes it brighter. With salt, the dough will not seem fresh.
• Baking soda or baking powder. Soda is not placed in the shortbread dough; flowability is achieved through proper preparation, but some housewives who are not confident in their abilities resort to the help of baking powder. With baking powder, baking from shortcrust pastry will certainly succeed. So it's your choice.
• Additional flavoring ingredients. By adding different ingredients to taste, such as vanilla, cocoa, lemon zest, a variety of nuts, dried fruits, drops of chocolate, ground ginger, cinnamon, you will get a new exquisite taste and aroma.

Now you know how the components work, but there are still mandatory conditions, so to speak, a technological process that must be followed. These conditions are the same no matter what recipe you use below.

• All ingredients must be weighed on a scale. A recipe in cups or spoons is not suitable here; the recipe must be followed strictly in grams. Of course, you can use measuring cups, but be sure to stick to the recipe more closely. Use the table of weights and volumes.
• The dry ingredients for the recipe (flour, salt, baking soda or baking powder, cocoa powder, ground nuts) are mixed before cooking. But remember that cocoa is equivalent to bulk cocoa, i.e. to the flour. Therefore, if you add cocoa powder to the dough, then reduce the same amount of flour in the recipe (for example, reduce 1 tablespoon of flour and add 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder).
• If you are preparing chopped dough, then all kitchen utensils (beating container, whisks, rolling board, rolling pin) must be cold.
• You can’t knead the shortbread dough for a long time, just combine all the crumbs into a lump and knead it a couple of times. Strike out.
• The finished shortbread dough must be cooled, put in a plastic bag, tightly closed and sent to cool in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, and preferably an hour. To make the dough cool faster and better, do not put it in a ball, flatten it slightly. Why do you need to refrigerate at all? Look, when heated, butter separates into milk fat and liquid. You could observe this if you were preparing ghee, and remaining cold in the mixture with flour will prevent the flour from absorbing moisture, because flour contains gluten, it combines with the liquid and adds viscosity to the dough.
• The dough must be rolled out evenly, otherwise thinner layers will dry out more in the oven. If you are baking one large cake, prick it all over the surface with a fork. Bake shortcrust pastry products in a preheated oven at 200°C, placing the baked goods in the middle of the oven in the standard “top-bottom” oven mode until slightly golden brown.

France is considered the founders and unsurpassed leaders of confectionery art. So in France, shortbread dough is divided into three types: pâte brisée (basic chopped dough), pate sablee (chopped sweet) and pate sukree (delicate sweet shortbread dough). Completely unfamiliar names, incomprehensible to ordinary housewives, but familiar to everyone based on the cooking technology.

Basic chopped shortcrust pastry or pâte brisée

It is considered the most universal, basic test. Based on chopped Pathé Brisé dough, savory baked goods are mainly made, such as meat pies, open pies with vegetables or Quiche.

Pate Brisé is a minced pastry made with just flour, water and a moderate amount of butter, with no added sugar or salt.

• Flour – 250 g
• Butter – 125 g
• Ice water – 50 ml
• Salt - a pinch

As a rule, it is prepared using a food processor - mixer, but can easily be done by hand.

Place well-chilled butter on flour and chop with a knife (grate or cut into small cubes), grind with flour until fine powdery crumbs are obtained. Gradually add cold water and quickly form the dough into a ball. Place in the refrigerator.

Due to the large grains of cold butter, when the moisture evaporates during the baking process, the dough acquires layered properties. Sometimes this dough is called false or pseudo-puff pastry.

Depending on the proportions of water, flour and butter, you can even prepare the dough for the layers of the famous and beloved Napoleon cake.

Chopped shortcrust pastry or pate sablee

This is the same chopped dough as the basic one, but with slightly different proportions of ingredients, or rather, with the addition of sugar, eggs and, if necessary, water.

• Flour – 250 g
• Salt - a pinch
• Butter – 125 g
• Sugar – 60 g Eggs – 1 pc.

Mix dry ingredients. Place the well-chilled butter on the flour and chop it with a knife; when there are small pieces of butter, grind them with the flour until a rich flour forms.

Separately, grind the eggs with sugar and pour the egg mixture into the flour. Knead into a thick dough.

Sweet or buttery shortbread cookie dough (pate sukree)

Shortcrust pastry is the simplest and easiest to make of all, in my opinion. Cookies from it turn out to be crumbly, they simply melt in your mouth, and the shapes of cookies can be formed into a wide variety of shapes. From shortcrust pastry you can make, for example, kurabye and Viennese cookies, rings with nuts, baskets with protein cream and many, many other delicious treats. Shortbread dough is an excellent base for cakes with curd and fruit fillings, and is also suitable for jam pie.

Depending on the amount of flour, the dough will be either softer or denser.

The ideal proportion is 1-2-3, i.e. 1 part sugar, 2 parts butter and 3 parts flour. And, note, this is in grams.

The one-two-three recipe for shortcrust pastry looks like this

• Sugar – 100 g
• Butter – 200 g
• Flour – 300 g
• Egg – 1 pc. whole or two yolks
• Salt - a pinch
• Baking powder – 1 tsp.

But sometimes a different proportion in a recipe is more justified, namely twice as much flour as butter, especially if milk or sour cream is added to the dough.

How to prepare shortbread dough?

Mix flour, baking powder, salt.

The butter should be at room temperature; remove it from the refrigerator about one hour in advance. Grind the butter with sugar until the grains disappear, or better yet, with powdered sugar, then add the eggs, and, continuing to knead, gradually add flour, using a spoon to knead into a loose dough.

At the end of kneading, you can help yourself with your hands to combine the whole mass into a lump.

Wrap in cling film and place in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

It is good to prepare this dough in advance, put it in the cold overnight, and in the morning quickly form cookies and be content with fresh pastries for tea for breakfast.

We noticed that during the cooking process there are no grains of butter, the butter is ground with sugar and eggs, and, therefore, large voids do not form when heated in the oven, as in chopped. This will make the dough more tender.

I hope you understand the cooking features. Maybe I missed something, write in the comments and we’ll discuss it together.

A novice cook often faces this problem: he wants to make a cake or cookies, opens a recipe book, and it says: “Knead shortbread dough from two eggs, one hundred grams of butter, two spoons of sugar and 150 g of flour.” A novice cook tries to follow a recipe, throws everything into one bowl, and the result is some kind of nonsense. The dough does not knead and becomes hard when baked. And all because the authors who write cookbooks for some reason believe that a person is born with full knowledge of what the technology of making shortcrust pastry is. But this is a kind of skill that should be comprehended. And this article will help all beginners to knead correctly. It comes in two types. And we will tell you in detail how they differ and how to prepare them. We will also reveal some of the subtleties and secrets of preparing this base for cakes, cookies and pastries.

A little history

Dough products appeared at the very dawn of the Neolithic revolution, when humanity had just mastered the cultivation and use of cereals. The grains were ground with a hand millstone, a little water was added to the powder... It is believed that the first flour products were similar to dumplings. But the technology for making shortcrust pastry is not so ancient. It is assumed that the first products from it began to be baked in the Persian Gulf region. The crusaders who fought in Palestine for the Holy Sepulcher brought a recipe for making shortcrust pastry to Europe, as well as a fork and other benefits of civilization. Cookies made from this base quickly gained popularity. And the name of the dough - shortbread - was given by French chefs. After all, the consistency of the finished product is crumbly and fragile. You bite off a piece, and it crumbles into small “grains of sand” in your mouth. It is shortbread that is served with traditional English tea at five o'clock in the afternoon. And now we will learn how to cook it.

Ingredients

The technology for preparing shortcrust pastry products is quite simple. Anyone can do this, even a novice cook. But there are also a few secrets that you need to know to make the dough truly crumbly and sandy. We have already said that it is divided into two types. The first is shortbread dough. For its preparation, only so-called basic products are used. This is flour, fats (butter, margarine), sugar and a little salt. To achieve the splendor of the products, baking powder (soda, ammonium) is added. Sand-jigged dough has a more liquid consistency. To prepare it, they use, in addition to basic products, eggs and (sometimes) sour cream. Of course, different seasonings can and even need to be added to both types of shortbread dough. These can be chocolate pieces, cocoa powder, ginger, raisins, nuts, cinnamon, vanilla, grated lemon zest, etc.

Secrets of preparing ingredients

As we have already said, the technology for preparing shortcrust pastry is quite simple. But she also has her secrets. The first concerns temperature conditions. If you knead shortbread dough in a hot kitchen, you will not get a quality product. After all, it is based on fats. They melt at high temperatures. And we just don’t need this. Therefore, it is important to prepare the dough in a room where the temperature does not exceed eighteen degrees. Next is flour. For a good yeast dough, it should have a large amount of gluten, and for shortbread, on the contrary, with a small amount. But since in our conditions we don’t have much choice, we’ll limit ourselves to buying white wheat flour of the highest quality. The oil should be very cold, but not from the freezer. For better results, margarine should also be used. The ratio of fats should be one to one. For baked goods to literally melt in your mouth, you must first turn them into powder. Eggs and sour cream, if we use them, should also be cold.

Shortbread dough: product preparation and technology

The main focus of kneading is to mix the fats into the flour as quickly as possible. That’s why we first prepare bulk products. We need the flour particles to be coated with fat. Then the gluten contained in it will not be able to come out, and the dough will not be elastic, like yeast dough. Therefore, the flour must first be sifted into a deep bowl through a fine sieve. Next you should add other bulk ingredients: powdered sugar, salt, for cookies or ammonium soda). If the recipe calls for cocoa powder, vanillin, cinnamon, grated ginger and other similar ingredients, we’ll also add them at this stage. Mix all the dry ingredients. Take cold and hard butter and margarine (or quickly grate them on a coarse grater. Mix these shavings with your fingers with flour. Work until the entire bowl is filled with so-called bread crumbs.

Shortbread dough: recipe and cooking technology

Of course, each product requires its own set of products and their quantity. Here you need to rely on the recipe. But there is still a certain formula for the ideal shortcrust pastry. It lies in the proportions of the base products. In general, it should take twice as much flour as fat. But you shouldn’t pour it all into the bowl at once. Let's leave some of it for later kneading. At the first stage, put the basic products in a bowl in the following proportions: for three hundred grams of flour - two hundred butter with margarine and one hundred powdered sugar. Even in sweet products, don’t forget to add a pinch of salt. To prevent the dough from coming out “clogged”, add a little soda and ammonium - literally at the tip of a knife, otherwise the products will acquire an unpleasant odor. Now it is important for us to achieve a moderately elastic dough. The fat begins to melt, and the “bread crumbs” easily stick together. Roll the bun around the bowl and knead it with your hands. All bread crumbs must be included in the dough.

What is important to know when kneading

Temperature is very important at this stage as well. If the room temperature is below fifteen degrees, we will remain at the “breadcrumbs” stage, since the fats will remain solid. And if the thermometer in the kitchen is above twenty-five, the butter will melt and separate from the total mass of food. At the same time, it is important for us to quickly and thoroughly prepare the shortcrust pastry. Reviews from experienced cooks advise putting the cutting board in the refrigerator in advance and preparing a container of ice water, where you should dip your palms from time to time. Remove the bun from the bowl. Transfer it to a floured wooden cutting board. Knead with your hands quickly and vigorously, rolling the edges inside the bun. The dough should be smooth, elastic, but matte. If the bun is shiny, it means the butter has melted too much. To eliminate this, you should put the dough in the refrigerator.

Rolling out

At this stage, the same requirements are observed as during kneading. That is, cool temperature and speed. The bun taken out of the refrigerator should be lightly kneaded with your hands. But the longer you knead the shortbread dough, the harder the product made from it will become. Sprinkle the board with flour. Place the dough in its center, giving it the shape of a brick. Take the rolling pin out of the refrigerator. Roll out from the center to the edges. At the same time, we move the rolling pin from and to ourselves at right angles, turning the board in a circle. The technology for preparing shortcrust pastry dishes is such that we need to roll out a fairly thin layer. These are not sponge cakes or pies. The layer of rolled out shortbread dough should not exceed eight millimeters in height.

How to make shortbread dough

As we remember, liquid products - eggs and sour cream - are added to this second type of base for cakes, pastries and cookies. Sometimes, if the dough turns out to be too stiff and does not roll out well or cracks, add a little water. But this spoils the taste of the baked goods. The technology for preparing jig-type shortbread dough is not much different from what we described above. When we achieve “bread crumbs”, add the amount of eggs and sour cream indicated in the recipe. Knead until you get an elastic ball. If it's a little shiny, it's not a problem. Transfer the dough to a floured board and continue kneading there. It is important not to overdo it with eggs. Proteins can add rigidity to products. Therefore, it is better to limit yourself to just yolks. Sour cream, as an additional fat, gives the dough additional tenderness and friability. This ingredient must be of high quality, very thick.

Baking products

The oven must be preheated to the temperature specified in the recipe. If we make notches, we cut a layer of dough. We transfer the preparations to a baking sheet covered with cooking paper. The thinner the layer of dough, the higher the temperature and the shorter the cooking time. Accordingly, the higher the cake, the colder the oven should be. We check the readiness of such products with a match: if the splinter comes out dry, it’s ready. The technology for preparing shortcrust pastry cakes allows the use of metal or silicone baskets. The surface of such products must be pricked in several places with a fork so that it does not swell. Bake cakes and cookies until golden brown.

Shortbread cupcakes

These products require liquid ingredients. The technology for making shortcrust pastry muffins involves the use of milk. A full glass of this product will require three hundred grams of flour, 180 g of butter, 100 g of powdered sugar, two eggs, 10 g of baking powder and a pinch of salt. If desired, you can add two handfuls of raisins, vanilla, grated lemon zest, dried apricots, and prunes cut into pieces into the dough. We begin the work by mixing bulk products. Then add crushed cold butter. We achieve “bread crumbs”. Add eggs and milk to a bowl. Beat the mass. Add raisins or other groceries. Beat again to saturate the dough with oxygen. Pour into muffin pan. Place in an oven preheated to one hundred and ninety degrees. Bake for about forty minutes.

1. Cold-temperature butter, not frozen, cut into pieces.

Note: the dough can be given a special taste and aroma. To do this, vanilla sugar, grated lemon or orange zest, crushed chocolate, cocoa powder, ground or chopped nuts, cinnamon, etc. are added to the composition. Additives should be added when kneading the dough and cooled with them in the refrigerator.

Pastries, tarts, pies and rolls are not the entire 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 good shortcrust pastry comes easily, but for others, it takes time and experience to acquire the culinary skills to make this product at home.

When starting to knead shortbread dough, you should remember that an indispensable condition for obtaining a high-quality base for baking is a sufficient amount of fat. Without them, the dough will not have the specific friability that gave it its name. In addition to fats, eggs play a big role in the recipe, and the quality of the dough will largely depend on the freshness of this product. Using only yolks when kneading will give the dough additional fluffiness and tenderness, and the flour intended for kneading must be of the highest grade and sifted twice. It is best to keep fats in the refrigerator before kneading, otherwise, having softened, they will lag behind the main mass, and as a result, the dough will lose its elasticity and the baked goods will turn out tough.

Depending on its purpose, a baking product can be unleavened, lightly salted and sweet. The required amount of salt is usually determined by the housewife herself. The optimal thickness for rolling out the cake is from 6 to 10 mm; thinner cakes may dry out, while cakes that are too thick may become lumpy or bake unevenly. To make it easier to lay out the rolled out sheet on a baking sheet, just sprinkle it with flour and, carefully wrapping the dough around a rolling pin or glass bottle, carefully spread it over the sheet starting from the top edge. To prevent the dough from sticking to the baking sheet, you can also lightly sprinkle it with flour, having previously greased the entire area and slopes of the sheet with vegetable oil, after which you can lay out a layer of dough. If, at the end of baking, the cake still does not come off, you need to place the baking sheet on a large cloth soaked in cold water and let it 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 invite you to use some of them to prepare a delicious crumbly dessert.

Classic shortcrust pastry for pies and cookies
This is one of the easiest and fastest recipes to prepare. To knead the dough you will need:

• flour – 600 g;
  
• butter – 300 g;
  
• granulated sugar – 200 g;
  
• egg yolks – 4 pcs.;
  
• salt – 1 teaspoon.
  

1. Sift the flour and mix it with salt and sugar.
   
2. Grate the butter, previously kept in the freezer, on a coarse grater and add to the flour mixture.
   
3. Lightly mash the ingredients with your hands or mix with a mixer and add the eggs.
   
4. Knead the dough. It should be quite dense.
   
5. Cover the bowl with the dough with a napkin and leave in the refrigerator for 40-50 minutes.
   
6. Roll out the cakes and bake at 230 degrees for 12-15 minutes.
   

• 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.
  

1. Sift the flour and add salt and sugar.
   
2. Add cooled sour cream, egg yolks and soda. Mix with a mixer.
   
3. Add 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 harm the consistency and quality of the dough.
   
4. Roll the dough into a ball, wrap it in cling film and place it in the refrigerator for 40-50 minutes.
   
5. Roll out a layer 6-7 mm thick, cut into circles the size of the baskets and, placing the dough in the molds, gently press it against the walls and trim off the excess by pressing on the edges of the molds.
   
6. Bake at 180 degrees for 7-10 minutes.
   

• 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.
  

1. Add sugar, cocoa powder, salt, soda and citric acid to the sifted flour.
   
2. Add eggs and mix the mixture in a mixer.
   
3. Distribute the grated frozen butter throughout the mixture and quickly knead the dough.
   
4. Form a ball, place it in a plastic bag and chill in the refrigerator for half an hour.
   
5. Roll out the layer and cut into shapes. Bake at 200 degrees for 7-10 minutes.
   

It’s hard to even count the number of shortcrust pastry recipes. Each recipe has its own characteristics, but they all have one thing in common - the mandatory presence of a large amount of oil.

Shortbread dough - basic recipe

The basic recipe for making shortcrust pastry uses a minimum of ingredients, and based on it you can prepare a wide variety of desserts.

The standard set of products consists of 12 tbsp. l. high-grade flour, 200 g fatty oil, 4 tbsp. l. Sahara. Vanillin is added at your discretion.

Instead of butter, it is permissible to take high-quality margarine, and instead of sugar, powdered sugar. Large crystals make the mass more rigid, so it is even better to grind regular coarse sugar in a coffee grinder until it becomes powdery.

Preparation:

1. Remove the oil until it reaches room temperature.
2. Sift the flour. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix.
3. Grind the flour with the butter, being careful not to overcrowd the mixture. Cookie dough should not be kneaded vigorously like yeast dough. The mass should be soft and elastic. Sometimes a little ice water is added to the mixture for this purpose.
4. Form a ball, carefully roll it in flour, cover with film and put in the refrigerator for ½ hour. It is not recommended to keep it in the cold for longer, as the butter will begin to harden, and then it will be difficult to roll out such a mass into a cake of the required thickness.

The finished dough can be frozen or used immediately for its intended purpose.

Recipe for making pies

Based on this dough, you can bake open and closed pies with different salty and sweet fillings. For salty baked goods, you need to remove sugar from the list of ingredients.

In addition to standard products (4 tbsp. flour, 1 stick of butter and 25 g of sugar), you will also need the following components:

• eggs – 2 pcs.;
• baking powder – 5 g;
• vanilla sugar - at personal discretion.

The preparation algorithm is not at all complicated:

1. Melt the butter on a barely warm stove in a suitable container.
2. Add sugar and stir. Wait until the mixture has cooled completely.
3. Beat the eggs into the cooled mixture and stir.
4. Combine the sifted flour with other bulk products.
5. Combine all components and knead an elastic mass.

Roll it up and put it in a cold place for 25 minutes so that it compresses better. Then the shortbread dough for the pie needs to be rolled out into a layer of the required thickness, sides formed along the edges and the pre-prepared filling laid out.

It is desirable that the filling is not too liquid, but has a thick consistency.

The pie must be baked in the lower part of the oven, otherwise the top will be covered with a burnt crust and the bottom will not have time to bake. If the top of the cake is already burnt, but the inside is still wet, the situation is quite easy to correct - just cover the top of the baked goods with foil.

Classic shortbread cookie dough

Every housewife needs to know the classic shortcrust pastry recipe for making cookies.

Ingredients:

• flour – 12 tbsp. l.;
• butter – 1 pack;
• powdered sugar – 4 tbsp. l.;
• 2 yolks or 1 whole egg.