Most cakes, despite the fact that the number of recipes in the thousands, are uniform. These are biscuits smeared with cream. You can fantasize as much as you like with cakes by adding cocoa, nuts, dried fruits, meringues to the dough, experimenting with the layer indefinitely - the essence of this does not change. And when you go to visit, you know: there you will find a biscuit with some cream. And we suggest you do something completely special - a sand cake!
Do you think that such a dough is only suitable for cookies? You are mistaken: the cream, having joined the shortcrust pastry, does not turn it into a semi-liquid mess, as it may seem to an inexperienced chef. On the contrary, it easily soaks cakes, which is why they simply melt in the mouth.
Shortcake recipes are also enough. And you, after reading our small selection, you can choose the right one for yourself. Shortbread dough, unlike yeast muffin, is easy to prepare, and it is not as capricious as biscuit. But before preparing the masterpieces, let's get acquainted with the basics.
Basic recipe
If you have ever cooked shortbread cookies, you can skip this paragraph - you already know everything. Well, if you are a beginner culinary, let's get acquainted with the basic principle of making shortcrust pastry.
For a cake, it is kneading in the same way as for cookies:
- Put 130 g of butter in a freezer (in a wrapper) in advance.
- Sift 450 grams of wheat flour into a wide-brimmed bowl.
- We also pour a bag of baking powder and 90 g of sugar. The cake will be more fragrant if the last ingredient is not beet, but cane. But white sugar will also work.
- Mix the dry ingredients.
- We take the frozen oil and quickly and quickly rub it into a bowl.
- Until it softens, knead the mass between the palms. We get a bowl with crumbs.
- Now beat 150 milliliters of milk with egg yolk.
- Pour crumbs with this mass. And, if there is a mixer with a paddle nozzle, we use it, no - we knead the dough with our hands.
Next steps
When the gingerbread man ceases to stick to his hands, we wrap it in cling film and send it to the refrigerator for half an hour. Baking sand cakes does not require special skills or dexterity from the cook. You just need to make a "French shirt" in a round shape.
What it is? Lubricate the walls of the mold with very cold margarine, sprinkle with flour. Turn upside down to shake out excess powder. At the bottom we lay a round piece of parchment, which we remember a little, and then straighten it so that the paper is as if corrugated. And here you are - the "French shirt" is ready.
According to the basic recipe for a sand cake, we simply divide the dough into three parts, each of them is rolled into a circle according to the diameter of the form and stacked. We ram the phalanges of the fingers. Lubricate with milk and sprinkle with a little sugar. This will give the cakes crispy properties. Bake at 190 degrees until cooked (about a quarter of an hour). When the cakes are cooled (first in the form, and then on the wire rack), smear them with cream.
Cake layer ideas
Shortcrust pastry does not absorb ingredients as easily as biscuit. Therefore, if we spread the cakes with butter cream, they will remain “themselves,” that is, they will not be saturated. Such products require a more humid environment, but also in moderation.
What types of creams are suitable for a shortbread cake? This is custard, based on condensed milk, jams, mousse, whipped cream, fruits, protein, cottage cheese. Mascarpone cheese with icing sugar is very suitable for decoration. Below we will look at how these creams are made. But you understood the principle: not very hard and not too liquid layer will make cakes a real cake. And so that the dough is moderately saturated, the culinary masterpiece must stand in the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours.
Royal Shortbread Custard Cake
We have already mastered the basic recipe. We are now starting to complicate our task:
- Of 400 grams of flour, four yolks (we’ll put the proteins in the refrigerator for a while), 150 g of sugar, a bag of powder for cookies and 220 g of butter, we knead the dough.
- We form four koloboks. Wrap each in a film, put it in the refrigerator.
- Let's do the cream. In 400 milliliters of cold milk, add 35 g of corn starch, 150 g of sugar and four yolks.
- Stir and put on a small fire. Stir continuously until the mass becomes consistent, like jelly.
- We remove from the stove and introduce 200 g of butter cut into pieces.
- Stir. Cover with cling film so that it touches the cream. We remove in the cold.
- Beat four protein until solid peaks with 150 g of sugar.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
- Roll one bun. Put in a mold, grease with whipped protein, sprinkle with crushed nuts.
- Bake for a quarter of an hour.
- We do the same with all the shortcakes for the shortbread cake with custard.
- When they cool, smear them. The remains of the cream decorate the top and sides of the product. Sprinkle with nut crumbs. Cake needs to be made on the eve of a celebration. It should be soaked overnight in the refrigerator.
"Bunch of grapes"
Contrary to the name, this sand cake is not prepared with berries, but with cream on condensed milk:
- We make the dough according to the recipe indicated above. A small amount will be left for decoration.
- We bake four cakes so that they are not very hardened, wrap them in cling film.
Cooking cream on condensed milk does not take much time:
- Beat a packet of butter with a bag of vanillin.
- Add a can of condensed milk (not boiled). Beat in a lush mass.
- If desired, you can diversify the cream with instant coffee or cocoa powder.
We grease the cakes. From the remaining dough we make balls - future grapes - and two leaves. We draw with a knife on the last veins. Bake these blanks on parchment for 15 minutes.
We drown chocolate in a water bath - black and white. The top of the cake is greased with cream. Dip half the balls in dark chocolate, and the remaining balls in white. We lay them in the form of a bunch of grapes. We place the leaves next to it. With chocolate, we draw the stems and tendrils of the grapes.
Crostat (basic recipe)
Making shortbread cakes does not always require baking cakes and then smearing them with cream. In the Mediterranean countries, crostats are very popular. These are such baskets of dough, filled with all sorts of things - fruits, berries, curd mass, etc.
The dough for them is made according to the basic recipe. The only caveat is the addition of a tablespoon of grated lemon peel and a small pinch of salt. But powder for cookies you can not sprinkle.
After the dough has stood for half an hour in the refrigerator, put it in the shape of a basket, make several punctures and pour a dry, thick layer of heavy beans. We bake a basket at 190 degrees from a quarter of an hour. We take the beans.
This is a basic recipe for all crostat. Now let's see how to fill the basket.
Crostat "Della Nonna"
We suggest you make the cream according to the Italian recipe. The sand cake is called "Grandmother's Crostat":
- Pour half a liter of milk into a saucepan, throw zest with one lemon into it, put on fire.
- While it begins to boil, we chopped four yolks with 130 grams of sugar.
- Add 40 g of corn starch. Stir.
- We get the zest from the saucepan.
- A small amount of hot milk is poured into the yolk mass. Gently stir.
- After that, pour the egg mass into the milk. Return the saucepan to the fire. Cook until thickened.
- Cover the cream with a film so that a crust does not form upon cooling.
- When it has completely cooled, you can add nuts, candied fruits, dried fruits. Put the cream in a basket. From scraps of dough we form ribbons with which we decorate the surface cross-on-cross. We finish the crostad in the oven at 180 ° C.
Sand cake with nuts
And in the end we suggest you make Snickers. Crispy nuts are in perfect harmony with a delicate meringue.
- According to a slightly modified basic recipe (instead of milk, pour sour cream), knead the shortbread dough for the cake.
- Roll into a layer, transfer to a baking sheet.
- Prepare a meringue. Beat three squirrels. Without turning off the mixer, pour 200 grams of powdered sugar. Proteins should be beaten to solid, non-falling peaks.
- With this mass, grease a thick layer of dough.
- Bake for 10 minutes at 170 ° C, and then for about half an hour at 110 degrees.
- We make the cream on condensed milk, as described above. Add roasted peanuts or hazelnuts to it.
- We divide the large cake into three parts. Smear them with cream and sprinkle with nuts.