At the mention of shortcakes, many people remember a school cafeteria or a buffet where everyone runs to the end of the lesson to have a tasty snack. Loose, sweet and fresh shortbread crusts were especially popular.
Shortbread - basic cooking principles
Shortbread dough is kneading from eggs, butter, flour, soda, sugar and salt. Since a lot of fat is added to it, baking is high-calorie. It is better to use homemade eggs, but if there are none, purchased ones are also suitable, as long as they are fresh.
You can replace butter with high-quality culinary margarine.
Shake the eggs with sugar and white salt, then add soft creamy fat and continue to beat until smooth.
Sometimes sour cream is added to the dough.
The flour is sifted and, adding small portions to the mixture of fat and eggs, knead a soft elastic dough. It is important to adhere to the recipe. A large amount of flour will make the pastries dry and mealy.
The dough is wrapped with foil or put in a bag and placed in the refrigerator for half an hour.
Then the dough is rolled out on the table, triturated with flour, into a layer about a centimeter thick.
Cut out shortcakes with a special mold and lay them on a baking sheet covered with parchment.
Bake for about a quarter of an hour. If you don’t have a cookie cutter, you can cut the muffins with a mug.
You can grease the surface with a beaten egg and sprinkle with crushed nuts, peanuts or poppy seeds.
Add the pulp of fruit, pumpkin or pieces of chocolate to the dough.
Recipe 1. Sand cakes as in childhood
Ingredients
kg of wheat flour;
5 ml of lemon juice;
three chicken eggs;
baking soda - 3 g;
180 g butter;
salt;
200 ml of sour cream;
200 g of sugar;
1 g of vanillin.
Cooking method
Place the eggs in a deep bowl and beat in a foam so that the volume doubles.
Pour sugar in small portions and continue whisking until crystals are completely dissolved.
Add sour cream to the egg mixture. Quench soda with lemon juice and add to a bowl.
Put the butter in a bowl and melt it in a water bath or low heat. Pour into a bowl with egg-sour cream mixture. Salt, add vanillin and mix well again.
Sift flour twice and gradually introduce into bowl contents, stirring vigorously. Knead an elastic, soft dough. Roll the dough a centimeter thick on the table, rubbing it with flour.
Using a special mold or glass, squeeze the cakes. Wavy edges can be made with a pencil. Place the blanks on a baking sheet covered with baking paper. Put in the oven preheated to 200 C for a quarter of an hour.
Recipe 2. Shortbread with nuts according to GOST
Ingredients
butter - a pack;
walnuts;
granulated sugar - 130 g;
vanilla essence - 3 ml;
flour - 350 g;
egg.
Cooking method
Beat the egg in a deep bowl, add soft butter, salt and soda. Pour granulated sugar. Beat with a mixer until smooth.
Pour in the sifted flour gradually and knead the soft dough quickly. Put it in a bag or wrap it with foil. Place in the refrigerator for half an hour.
Put the dough on the table, triturated with flour, and roll it into a layer, a centimeter thick.
Put the nuts in a bag, and roll with a rolling pin, chopping into not too small crumbs. Smear the dough with a beaten egg and sprinkle with nuts. Press them lightly into the dough using a rolling pin. With a special mold or a glass, cut out the cakes.
Place the blanks on the deco covered with baking paper. Put on an average level of a preheated oven up to 200 C for a quarter of an hour.
Recipe 3: Shortbread Sandwich with Pumpkin
Ingredients
400 g premium flour;
two chicken eggs;
butter - half a pack;
baking powder - 5 g;
granulated sugar - 180 g;
salt - a pinch;
pumpkin - 50 g.
Cooking method
Drive an egg into a deep cup, add sugar and add a pinch of salt. Beat everything well.
Peel the pumpkin and remove the seeds with fibers. Cut the pulp of the vegetable into small pieces, place in a glass dish and put in the microwave for three minutes. We interrupt the soft vegetable with a blender or grind through a sieve. Pumpkin can be boiled or baked in the oven. Add pumpkin puree to the egg mixture and mix.
Add soft butter to the egg mixture and mix so that the fat is evenly distributed throughout the mixture.
Combine the flour with a baking powder and sift it into a container with the rest of the ingredients. First, mix with a spoon, and then knead the dough with your hands. As soon as it has absorbed all the flour, we wrap it in a film and send it to the refrigerator for forty minutes.
Preheat the oven to 220 C. The table surface is ground with flour, spread the dough and roll it into a layer, a half centimeter thick. Squeeze the cake with a cookie or a glass. We spread the blanks on a baking sheet, covering it with baking paper. Bake until golden brown for a quarter hour.
Put the finished cakes on the wire rack and cool. Serve with milk drinks.
Recipe 4: Shortbread with Plums and Ice Cream
Ingredients
half a stack. flour;
two scoops of vanilla ice cream;
100 g of white sugar;
20 g of brown sugar;
a pinch of salt;
30 ml of milk;
a quarter packet of butter;
egg yolk;
two medium sized plums.
Cooking method
We heat the oven to 180 degrees. In a small bowl, combine half a glass of flour with salt and white sugar. Add the soft butter, sliced. Quickly mix with your hands until a crumbly homogeneous mass is obtained.
We divide the dough in half and put it in two forms, with a diameter of five centimeters and ram it to make thin crusts with sides. If you do not have such forms, you can use the culinary ring. We send the molds into the oven and bake for ten minutes.
My plums, cut in half and remove the stone. Cut the pulp of the fruit into thin slices. We spread them in a circle on shortcakes. In a cup, combine the egg yolk with milk, brown sugar and 10 g of flour. Rub well. Pour the mixture with the resulting mixture. Sprinkle with brown sugar on top.
Put the cakes in the oven and bake for about half an hour. We lay the finished baking on a wire rack, cool and serve, laying on top a ball of vanilla ice cream.
Recipe 5. Shortbread with nuts and chocolate
Ingredients
Dough
a pinch of table salt;
370 g butter;
two stacks. wheat flour;
half a stack. powdered sugar.
Filling
three stacks. walnuts;
60 g of dark chocolate;
a pinch of salt;
four chicken eggs;
5 ml of vanilla extract;
one and a half stack. brown sugar.
Cooking method
Preheat the oven to 200 C. Put the soft butter in a deep bowl, add the icing sugar and beat with a mixer until a lush mass is obtained.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour with salt. Gradually introduce the dry mixture into whipped butter and knead a homogeneous dough. We spread it on the table, after sprinkling it with flour. We roll it into a layer, a centimeter thick, and squeeze out the shortbread. We make small sides.
We spread them on a baking sheet and put in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes. We put the finished cakes on the wire rack and cool. The temperature of the oven is reduced to 180C.
We break the chocolate into pieces, put it in a glass dish and melt in the microwave. We drive eggs into a separate bowl, add brown sugar, chopped nuts, melted chocolate, salt and vanilla extract. Mix everything until smooth.
Korzhiki again put on a baking sheet, pour the chocolate filling into them and put in the oven. Bake for 20 minutes. Serve with hot, cold drinks or milk.
Recipe 6: Shortbread with Jam
Ingredients
200 g butter;
300 g thick jam;
three chicken eggs;
800 g of wheat flour;
150 g of sugar;
5 g slaked vinegar soda;
salt is a pinch.
Cooking method
Beat eggs in a deep bowl, add sugar, add salt and beat until a thick white foam is obtained.
Add soft butter to the egg mixture and continue whisking. Add slaked soda. Shuffle. Sift flour into the liquid mixture and start kneading with a spoon first. When the dough begins to gather in a lump, put it on a table sprinkled with flour, and knead with your hands until the dough stops sticking to your palms. Wrap it in foil and place in the refrigerator for an hour.
Take the dough out of the refrigerator and roll it into a layer no more than a centimeter thick. Cut the circles with a glass or a special mold. In one, cut a circle of smaller diameter. Put a circle with a hole on the whole circle.
Lay the blanks on a baking sheet. Put a thick jam in the center of each cake. Put in the oven, preheating it to 200 degrees, for forty minutes.
Put the finished cakes on a wire rack and cool. Serve pastries with dairy drinks, cocoa, or hot tea.
Shortbread cookies - tips and tricks
All ingredients for the dough should be chilled.
To make the pastries tender and soft, replace granulated sugar with powdered.
For flavor and color, cinnamon, cocoa, vanillin, chocolate or citrus zest are added to the dough.
Korzhiki will turn out to be more crumbly if one third of the flour is replaced with starch.
