At what temperature should you bake shortbread dough in the oven and for how long?

• February 1, 2019
• Dough products
• Elena_Ladypain

In fact, making homemade shortcrust pastry is not at all difficult. This requires knowing which ingredients to use and in what order to add them. Once you can knead the dough, you will be able to make a variety of homemade baked goods.

To start, you will need flour, salt, sugar, butter, baking powder and ice water. Each of these ingredients plays a crucial role in creating a delicious shortcrust pastry. They are worth dwelling on separately.

Fat

Some shortcrust pastry recipes call for only butter, while others call for a combination of butter and margarine. If desired, you can mix butter and vegetable oils.

Why use a mixture of several components? Butter gives the dough a delicate creamy taste, and margarine helps give it a dense structure, leaving it soft.

When adding this ingredient, there is only one, but very important rule to follow: make sure the oil is cold. Not soft or warm, but frozen, straight from the refrigerator. Only in this form is the fat source added to the flour mixture. Why is this necessary? When you put a pastry product in the oven, you want it to contain some pieces of cold fat. They will melt as you bake and create little air pockets, giving you a crumbly cake or cookie.

Simple and tricky

For many, their acquaintance with dough began with baking shortbread cookies. But instead of crumbly, tender cookies like the ones in the tin labeled “Danish Cookies,” the results were dry, hard pieces that could break your teeth.

And all because, despite the simplicity of the ingredients, shortcrust pastry has its own characteristics, without understanding which nothing good will come of it.

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Ice water

You will also need ice water to help the dough come together. You should measure out the required amount of water, add some ice to it and stir. It should only be used when it becomes very cold. After adding ice, measure the amount again. You need to add exactly as much as the recipe requires. You need to pour it one tablespoon at a time.

If you add too much water to the dough, you will end up with a sticky batter. If there is too little of it, you will end up with a dough that is too crumbly and will not stick together. Therefore, it is important to pour water gradually.

How to prepare this dough?

Before deciding what can be made from shortcrust pastry, you need to learn how to knead it correctly. How to make it so that it turns out to be of high quality?

To start this process, you will need to mix together the flour, salt and sugar. Then add cold butter and margarine, cut into cubes, into the mixture and start chopping everything with a knife. If you don't have a special cutter, you can do this using two large forks.

You should end up with pea-sized pieces of fat. Larger pieces in the dough shouldn't scare you either. You can also use a food processor to knead the dough, but doing it by hand is very easy.

You will then need to slowly pour in the ice water. Remember, all you have to do is add it one tablespoon at a time and mix gently each time. One tablespoon at a time is the ideal amount so you don't end up with excess water in the dough. Shortcrust pastry recipes usually call for a certain amount of water, but you should also use your eye as a guide.

When you add enough of it, the mixture will become elastic. At the right consistency, it should stick together when you squeeze a small amount in your fist. Just test for doneness on a small piece, but don't hold the dough in your hands for too long. Otherwise, the heat of your palms will melt the fat, and you should not heat it.

Other subtleties of baking from shortcrust pastry

? In order for shortcrust pastry to meet your expectations, you should adhere to the following rules:

• Do not deviate from the proportions specified in the recipe, since changing the amount of any of the ingredients can completely change the final result;
• the butter should soften at room temperature, since melting in the microwave or on the stove makes the cookies too oily;
• A good way to speed up the melting process of butter is to chop it finely;
• after half the allotted baking time, it is advisable to rotate the baking sheet 180º so that the cookies bake evenly;
• Before placing the dough in the oven, it is important not to forget to make several punctures with a fork - this will prevent the dough from bubbling during cooking.

Shortbread dough was accidentally invented in the 12th century in Great Britain. In order not to throw away the leftover dough after baking bread, butter and sugar were added to it, and then dried in the oven until crumbly.

How to prepare the dough?

What can you make from shortcrust pastry? As a rule, various pies are made from it. Using the example of preparing such a product, further instructions are offered.

So what to do with the prepared dough? You should roll it out into an even layer. A standard open pie is usually around 25cm in diameter. You can then use a ruler to ensure you have achieved the correct measurements. This is the perfect size for most standard baking pans. If you roll out the dough to a larger size than your pan can accommodate, trim off the excess with a sharp knife. You can place these residues on the surface of the product.

As you can see, all this is done very easily. You can bake one or two pies at the same time.

How to bake this dough?

Line an appropriately sized pan with parchment paper and grease with any oil. Roll out the dough to 25 cm in diameter, transfer it to the pan and gently press it to the bottom and edges. Trim off any excess around the edges. Fill the product with filling. It can be anything - both hearty and dessert. However, try to use ready-made or quickly baked products for the filling (jam, berries, boiled rice, etc.). Place a second layer of dough on top and seal the edges, or use the remaining dough by laying them out as strips. Cover the top with a sheet of parchment paper or foil.

Bake this product at 200 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and remove parchment paper or foil. Return the pie to the oven and continue cooking for another 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Individual approach

Every housewife wants her pies to always turn out well. And they will either burn, or the filling will be raw, or the bottom of the pie will be wet. Sometimes it may seem that cooking is a complex science. But that's not true. As in any business, there are secrets here. And there is no perfect recipe.

At what temperature should the cake be baked? Baking time and temperature depend on many factors - size of the product, filling, dough. The presence of a convection mode plays an important role - it reduces the cooking time by about 5-7 minutes and ensures uniform baking.

Each oven requires an individual approach. One heats a little more from below and the pie burns, the other from above and the bottom is not baked. You can only find out your oven through trial and error. However, there are still general rules.

How to make a blank for a future pie?

What can be made from shortcrust pastry? As noted above, pies are most often baked from it. You can do a certain trick. You can bake the pie crust until half cooked, freeze it, and then use it with any filling.

This is done as follows. Roll out and place the dough into the prepared pan as directed above. Then use special ceramic or metal balls that help press the base and prevent it from deforming. If you don't have this tool, you can use dry beans or even dry rice. Cover the whole thing with parchment paper and bake at 200 degrees for about 15 minutes. After this, remove the paper, remove the press and bake for another five minutes.

To freeze the dough, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and store in the freezer. It can be stored this way for 2-3 months. To use the dough for baking, you must first place it in the refrigerator to thaw.

Can it be stored?

Shortbread dough tolerates freezing well, so it makes sense to knead it in larger quantities than needed. Wrap the dough tightly in film or put it in a plastic bag, label it with the name of the dough and the date of preparation and put it in the freezer. Before you start rolling out the frozen dough, let it thaw in the refrigerator.

Chef's tip:

Shortbread dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days, in the freezer for up to 6 months.

Photo: Arseny Kosterin

Filled cookies

What you will need:

• 1 kg of dough;
• Nutella or strawberry jam (or whatever topping you want to use);
• glaze made from a mixture of one egg, a teaspoon of soda and a teaspoon of water;
• a glass of powdered sugar;
• a teaspoon of vanilla extract;
• 2 tablespoons of milk.

Roll out the dough into a rectangle and cut into small even shapes of the same shape. Place half of the shapes on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Place a tablespoon of filling on each of these rectangles. Top with the remaining dough shapes and crimp the edges with a fork. Using a pastry brush, brush the pieces with the egg mixture.

Bake for 10-12 minutes in the oven at 190 degrees. Cool completely on the baking sheet. To make vanilla glaze, combine powdered sugar, vanilla extract and milk and mix until smooth. Pour the glaze over the cooled cookies and wait until it hardens.

Cinnamon Cookies

What you will need:

• 500 g dough;
• melted butter;
• cinnamon mixture (a quarter cup of sugar + 1 teaspoon of cinnamon).

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees. Roll out the dough into a thin layer. Using a pizza cutter, cut into 2 x 10cm strips. Transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Cool completely before serving.

Sweet pies

What you will need:

• 1 kg of dough;
• any sweet filling;
• round cutter with a diameter of 8 cm;
• egg mixture (1 egg + teaspoon of water);
• coarse confectioner's sugar.

Preheat the oven to 210 degrees. Using a cookie cutter, cut out circles on the rolled out dough. Place the circles on parchment paper. Add a teaspoon of filling to each piece. Fold the dough over and begin crimping the edges with a fork. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely before serving.

Hearty pies

What you will need:

• 1 kg unsweetened dough;
• meat filling (fried ground beef + canned corn + cheddar cheese);
• egg mixture (1 egg + teaspoon of water).

This is one of the most original ideas on what to make from shortcrust pastry. Preheat the oven to 210 degrees. Using a cookie cutter, cut circles into the rolled out dough. Place all the preparations on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Add a teaspoon of meat filling to each circle (from one edge). Roll into semicircles and seal the edges with a fork. Brush the pies with the egg mixture using a pastry brush. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Skit

Cabbage is not only student amateur performances and skits on topical topics, but also a general name for delicious, somehow light pies with cabbage.

Cabbage can be on yeast, sour cream, puff pastry or aspic. Fresh or fried cabbage is used for the filling. Sometimes rice or fish is added to this pie.

Finely shredded cabbage itself cooks very quickly. However, it depends only on the type of dough at what temperature to bake the cabbage pie. For yeast this indicator fluctuates around 210–220 °C, for sour cream – 180–200 °C, for shortbread – 230–250 °C.

Baskets with chicken

What you will need:

• 1 kg unsweetened dough;
• chicken fillet lightly fried with onions, cut into small cubes.

This is another interesting product made from shortcrust pastry. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees. Using a large round cutter, cut circles from the rolled out dough. Place each in a silicone muffin tin, pressing the dough into the bottom and sides of the muffin cups with your fingers. Place 1-2 teaspoons of chicken in each preparation. Bake for 20 minutes.

Source

Baking time tables for dough products

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