What secrets are hidden in the recipe for shortcakes?

Correctly cooked short pastry - very delicate and friable, literally melting in the mouth. At first glance at the recipe for a short-dough, you might think that there are no difficulties and secrets in its preparation, however, this is not so. The sand test has its secrets, which it does not hasten to reveal with a superficial acquaintance, therefore, at first, products from it can turn out not quite successful - hard and rough.

To avoid such troubles, it is necessary to consider the following factors when preparing a short test:

1. The friability and plasticity of the sand test is attached to a large amount of butter contained in it. If the oil is less than necessary - the dough will turn dense and firm.
2. In order to make the dough very friable and tender, it is recommended to use for it only egg yolks (baking powder, in which case you can not add).
3. If the preparation of a short dough is made in a hot place, it is desirable to cool it before preparing the products.
4. The table on which the short pastry is rolled, it is necessary to sprinkle abundantly with flour and several times to pour in the flour when rolling.
5. The dough should have the same thickness, otherwise, when baking, thin places will burn, and thick ones will remain damp.
6. A short dough is baked at a temperature of 240 - 260 ° C. The most delicious fragrances are products that have acquired after baking a golden color, not only from the outside, but also inside.

Here's how it looks, the traditional recipe for shortbread dough:

Take butter 250 gr; 3 cups of flour; Half a cup of sugar (or even better than powdered sugar); 2 yolks; vanilla sugar.

Rinse the butter with sugar, vanilla sugar and a pinch of salt until the mass becomes homogeneous, without lumps. Add the yolks, then pour in flour in portions and knead well the resulting dough. Place the dough for half an hour in the refrigerator to make it easier to roll out.

To give a piece of dough a rectangular shape (similar to a brick) and roll it out on a flat, flour-filled table. Next, to form products, according to the selected recipe - this can be baskets, tartlets, cakes for cakes or a variety of short-pastry cookies.

Arrange the products from the short pastry on a dry, fat-free baking sheet and bake at the temperature indicated above until ready.

Perhaps one of the most common options for baking from a short pastry is a biscuit, often served for tea or coffee. Here, for example, as this is an original shortbread cookie with berries.

For the recipe you will need: flour 250 gr; 125 g. Butter; 60 g. Sahara; egg; a pinch of salt; Strawberry or cherry.

Beat the egg with sugar, add soft butter, a pinch of salt, flour. Knead the dough and divide it into 5 parts. Roll out the dough quite thinly, to a thickness of 1 centimeter. Special dredges for dough, cut circles, hearts or other forms and put on them two or three berries of strawberries or cherries. Cover the berries with a thin layer of dough and combine it with the base dough.

Bake the biscuit at 210 ° C for about half an hour.

The recipe for shortcake is also used for another biscuit, which, with its excellent taste, is so easy to cook that even a child can bake it.

For the recipe you need: 125 gr. Butter; Sugar powder 125 g; egg; Flour 250 gr; Lemon peel; Nuts.

Mix the butter with the powdered sugar and beat together thoroughly, add egg yolk, flour and grated lemon zest on a fine grater. Knead the dough, roll it into a layer, from which to cut out with a thimble and a glass of biscuits in the form of bagels. Dip it with one side into the whipped protein and immediately into the large-pounded nuts (walnuts, peanuts, almonds).

Bake the biscuits in a moderately warm oven until ready.

And, in conclusion, one more tip: if the short-pastry recipe is intended for products with various aromatic fillings (for example, cakes, cakes, pies), then the dough itself is not necessary to aromatize. But in the pastry dough it is recommended to add vanilla sugar or orange peel (lemon), cinnamon or well-ground nutmeg. You can replace a glass of flour in the recipe with powdered roasted nuts or, add a little cocoa powder to the dough.