Shortbread dough is one of the easiest to prepare, so it is so widely used and so popular among housewives. From it you can make pies with filling - open and closed, cakes with different types of creams and fruits, cakes, shortbread cookies. The recipe for this type of dough is, as a rule, to combine one part of sugar, two parts of fat, and three parts of flour. These are approximate proportions, each chef has his own little trick, but basically this ratio of products is the key to a successful shortcrust pastry.
For example, a shortbread recipe for baskets recommends adding egg yolks when kneading the dough. Then the dough will become more tender and crumbly, and will acquire a golden hue. If you add vanillin, or lemon peel, or nuts to the dough, the taste and aroma of the pastries will correspond to the flavorings, and the filling for the baskets can be prepared exactly in accordance with it. So, adding lemon peel to the dough for sand baskets, you can prepare a lemon protein-oil cream to fill it , and put a teaspoon of lemon grated with sugar on the bottom of the basket, under the cream. Then the taste of the dough, cream and fruit filling will ideally coincide, and the cake will turn out to be simply magnificent.
If you plan to make chocolate sand baskets, the recipe allows you to add cocoa powder into the dough, and use melted chocolate for chocolate cream . In addition, rubbing chocolate with large chips and sprinkling cake, you will give it a mouth-watering look and emphasize the chocolate flavor of the basket.
The method of preparing shortcrust pastry can be manual, or using a combine. In any case, shortbread cookies, the recipe of which requires thorough mixing of butter (margarine) with sugar (if you want to make a sweet dough) and flour, requires the introduction of eggs and water after the butter and flour crumbs are thoroughly ground. Do not try to immediately pour all the liquid into the dough, add it gradually, and as soon as the consistency of the dough becomes uniform, roll it into a ball and put it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
If you want to make shortbread cookies, the recipe of which allows you to use a combine, first mix flour and salt in a bowl, then add chopped or grated butter (margarine). Turn on the combine for a few seconds until large crumbs are formed in the bowl, then turn it off and start adding gradually the egg whipped with water, including the combine for several seconds. Watch the test: as soon as it starts to move away from the walls of the combine and gather in a ball, remove it, wrap it in cling film and put in the refrigerator for half an hour.
From shortcrust pastry, you can quickly make cookies or cakes for tea. For example, in order to prepare cakes, you need to roll out the dough up to 6 mm thick, cut out special forms in the mold, put them on a greased baking sheet with a thin layer of oil and bake for 15 minutes at a temperature of 230 degrees. While your shortbread cookies, the recipe of which involves the use of jam and cream, are baking, you can start preparing the filling. Beat egg whites with sugar and gradually pour warm sugar syrup into them, continuing to beat. Gently mix the protein cream with softened butter, and when the baked cookies have cooled, apply not a layer of jam on it, but a layer of protein-oil cream on top.
If you add poppy seeds to the cookie dough, you get poppy shortbread cookies. After baking, coat with chocolate and serve with coffee or tea.
You can add crushed nuts to the shortbread dough, or, rolling the dough, sprinkle the surface of the dough with them. Cut the dough into strips, rhombuses, squares, and bake at temperatures up to 250 degrees. Children like nuts very much. It turns out fragrant and mouth-watering.
Shortcake with berries can be baked just half an hour before the guests arrive. Lay out the dough in a pan, be sure to make the sides, put the fruit on the cake and fill with whipped whites. This cake needs to be baked for 20-25 minutes at a temperature of 200-220 degrees.