Any housewife knows that products from shortcrust pastry have a very delicate taste, and not many people are able to give up pleasure, enjoy such pastries. However, not everyone is able to cook a truly delicious shortcrust pastry. But it is being prepared without much difficulty, just for this you need to know some tricks.
Soft shortcrust pastry contains a large amount of butter, which makes it so tender. From it you can bake cakes, pies with a variety of fillings, various cakes, cookies, gingerbread cookies and the like. Depending on the ingredients, shortbread dough can be divided into several types. Suppose a traditional recipe includes flour, water and butter, which can be replaced with margarine. If you add an egg instead of water, then it will already be egg dough. But if you replace the water with sour cream, then it will already be sour cream. To make the pastry more pleasant, you can add a variety of spices to the dough: vanilla, cardamom, lemon zest or nutmeg. At the same time, pay attention to the fact that if you plan to make baked goods with filling, you do not need to add aromatic additives.
Cooking Shortcrust pastry is the little secrets of a good housewife.
If you do not want the pastry from the shortcrust pastry to turn out tough, you should cook it very quickly until the butter or margarine included in its composition is melted. The whole process of cooking should last no more than 10 minutes.
Butter or margarine for shortcrust pastry should be added only in chilled form. It is chilled, not frozen. The optimal proportion of flour and oil should be 2: 1, because if you add a lot of flour to the dough, then the products will burn during baking and may turn out to be completely tasteless.
Knead shortbread dough is best in a room whose temperature does not exceed 15 degrees. At the same time, it is necessary to carefully ensure that the dough itself contacts the hands as little as possible. Therefore, you need to sift the flour on a table, make a depression in the middle, add oil, egg and sugar to it, then chop everything into small pieces and do it with your hands.
When the shortcrust pastry is ready, it will need to be rolled into a ball and placed in the refrigerator for half an hour. At the same time, you can’t keep it in the refrigerator for too long, because it can become hard. The dough should be stored in a plastic bag or cling film. Otherwise, it may very quickly wind up.
Shortcrust pastry needs to be rolled out very thinly. Each cake should be no more than 4 mm, otherwise it can be baked for a long time. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that roll cakes need only when the dough is at room temperature.
If you want the product to have a beautiful color, you can grease the shortbread dough with egg white or butter just before baking.
After you take the product out of the oven, take a brush and brush it with water. This must be done so that the baking remains soft for a long time and does not harden.
When you spread the dough into a mold, press it as tightly as possible so that no air space forms under it, otherwise the product may become deformed during baking.
In order to bake from shortcrust pastry was more baked, tasty and at the same time not rigid, the temperature of the oven should be 220-250 degrees.
Finished shortcrust pastry can be stored for about 10 days. If you follow all of the above tips, you can prepare the perfect shortcrust pastry in minutes and delight your loved ones with delicious pastries that will melt right in your mouth.