Sand dough is one of the easiest. It will be possible to prepare the dough itself the first time, even if you have never dealt with the dough at all. And you will never fail with him either.

Shortbread dough is universal; cookies, baskets, cakes, pies are baked from it. It is excellent in both sweet and savory recipes. equally delicious sand baskets for cakes with sweet protein cream and the same baskets with salad - in the first case, they put a little sugar in the dough, and in the second they do without it.

The same applies to shortbread pies. sweet stuffing- and you have pastries for tea. Unsweetened - and you snack pie for dinner. So the recipes shortbread pie from shortcrust pastry.

WHAT IS HERE

• Shortbread pie with minced meat and champignons with photo
• Sweet shortcake with rhubarb and meringue
• Sand cake with shortbread "quick"

The amount of dough and filling is enough for a cake that will be baked in a 25 cm diameter mold. Cooking time is 1 hour 20 minutes.

Ingredients

For test:

• cold butter - 100 grams
• flour - 200 grams + a little extra
• salt - half a teaspoon
• egg - 1

For filling:

• chopped meat- 200 grams
• fresh champignons - 200-300 grams
• onion - 1 large
• hard cheese - 100 grams
• egg - 1 pc.
• pepper, salt, sprig (or two) rosemary

Cooking

To knead shortcrust pastry, pour the sifted flour onto a work surface, add salt. Put oil. And with a knife chop it into small pieces right in the flour.



Make a small indentation and beat in the egg.



Knead a dense and smooth, homogeneous dough. Put it in a film and send min. 20 in the refrigerator.



At this time, make the filling. Cut the onion into thin half rings.



Wash the mushrooms and cut into small pieces.



Grate the cheese coarsely. Lightly beat an egg in a bowl.



Add cheese and stir.



Get it shortbread dough from the refrigerator and on a surface dusted with flour, roll into a layer a centimeter thick.



Pour into a mold and flatten the sides with your hands.



Put the dough in the oven for 15 minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees so that it dries out a little (do not overdry, it still needs to be baked).



After removing from the oven, immediately spread the filling on the dough. Spread the minced meat evenly with the first layer.



Salt and pepper it. Sprinkle with rosemary leaves.



Lay the mushrooms in one layer on the stuffing.





And the cheese-egg layer completes the shortcake.

On a note: It's okay if the cheese does not cover the entire surface, it's not a pizza, but a pie.

Put to bake in the oven for half an hour (temperature 180 degrees).

It is better to serve a hearty shortbread pie right away, from the oven, hot and fragrant.

By the way, the filling for such a pie can be anything: only mushrooms, onions and cheese; only minced meat and onions, vegetable or fish filling.

Sweet pastry pie

Did you know that rhubarb and meringue are a classic pie combo? Even if you hear about it for the first time, it doesn’t stop you from cooking amazingly. tasty pie with rhubarb and a lattice of whipped cream. And the dough, as you may have guessed, will be shortbread for the pie.

Ingredients for a mold 27 cm in diameter. Time - 40 minutes + 2 hours chilling the dough

Dough Ingredients

flour - 250 grams
yolk - 1
butter - 125 grams
sugar - 125 grams

For filling

rhubarb - 350 grams
sugar - 100 grams
protein - 2

Making rhubarb shortcake

Cut the butter into very small pieces.

Sift flour onto a work surface. Put oil. Add yolk and sugar. Knead the dough. Roll the dough into a ball, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

Then roll out on a floured surface (don't add too much flour, just so it doesn't stick). Put in a mold, spread with your hands and make holes with a fork. Put in the oven to bake until golden brown at 200 degrees.

Rhubarb wash and dry. Cut into small pieces. Put on a hot billet and bake for another 20-25 minutes.

Sand cake with sand sprinkles

This version of the pie will help out a lot if you need to quickly figure out a delicious pie for the arrival of guests. A win-win option - the dough is always obtained, the filling can be made from what is at hand (frozen or fresh fruit, jam or jam).

Ingredients:

flour - 350 grams
eggs - 2
sugar - 150 grams
vanillin - half a teaspoon
butter - 150 grams

For filling:

frozen cranberries - 200 grams
sugar - 100 grams (or to your taste)
walnuts- 70 grams

How to make a quick shortbread pie

Soften the butter. Add sugar and stir. Add, beating, one egg at a time. Add vanilla and stir. Pour in the sifted flour, knead the dough.

Wrap a homogeneous bun of dough with a film or put it in a bag and put it in the refrigerator for half an hour.
Remove the zest from the lemon. Place cranberries and sugar in a blender and puree.

Chop the peeled walnuts.

Take two-thirds of the dough out of the refrigerator, roll it out and put it in a mold with sides. Spread cranberry puree on top.

Coarsely grate the remaining dough on top of the cranberry layer, spread as evenly as possible. Sprinkle with walnuts.

Bake at 200 degrees for 30-40 minutes.
When serving, you can sprinkle with powdered sugar.

And this is .

This is an intermediate option between sand and puff pastry. It is crumbly, but strong, so it is suitable as a base for large pies and quiches.

In a recipe, you can add the word "cold" before each ingredient and item, and this should not be neglected. Water should be ice cold, oil - hard as a stone. It's a good idea to keep bowls, knives and even the board on which you will work with the dough in the freezer. It is better to move the cutting table away from the battery or open a window.

The secret of shortcrust pastry in oil. It is thanks to him that baking turns out crumbly.

All this trouble to ensure that the butter does not melt. Because otherwise you get a completely different product.

Classic way

Ingredients

• 200 g butter;
• 300 g flour;
• a pinch of salt;
• 50–100 ml of water.

Cooking

Cold butter cut into small cubes and put in the freezer for 15 minutes. At this time, sift the flour with salt, pour it on a table or board. Lay the butter cubes on top, dust them generously with flour and chop the dough with a knife or two.

It is important to touch the oil as little as possible with your hands: body heat will quickly melt it, the consistency will not be what you need.

When the butter and dough combine and turn into small grains, gradually add water, kneading the mass into a plastic lump. Put it in the freezer for 15 minutes. Then roll out the dough, put the filling, for example, and send it to the oven.

lazy way

Technological progress does not stand still, why not use it in cooking. You will need the same ingredients and a food processor with bladed knives. The oil does not have to be cut into small cubes: the device will handle itself. Throw butter, flour into the bowl and whisk. The main thing is not to overdo it, in the end you should get all the same grains.

Gradually add ice water until the dough starts to form into a ball. Further instructions are the same as in the classic recipe.

Shortcrust pastry can be stored in the freezer for several weeks.

Additives

Retreat from basic recipe can. Here are some ideas:

1. Put 50-100 g of sugar in the dough for a sweet pie.
2. Replace 30 g of flour with the same amount of cocoa - you will get chocolate dough.
3. Add up to half a cup of finely chopped nuts.
4. Flavor the mixture with citrus zest or vanilla.

According to this recipe, a more plastic dough will be obtained, which is convenient to roll out. Baking from it crumbles less. By the way, in culinary disputes, some confectioners refuse to call shortbread chopped dough. They believe that only with the help of such a recipe can one get a classic basis for tarts and baskets.

The oil should not be cold, but chilled. It is impossible to explain how one state differs from another. Just take the product out of the freezer an hour before cooking.

Ingredients

• 100 g of oil;
• 100 g sugar (preferably - powdered sugar);
• 250 g flour;
• 1 egg (or 2 yolks).

Cooking

It is better to mix the components with a culinary spatula or spoon, and connect your hands only at the last stage, when you need to collect the dough into a ball. Rub butter with sugar, add flour, then egg.

If you have a food processor, delegate all these responsibilities to him.

You can cool the dough, and then cut it. You can first give it the desired shape, and then send it to the freezer. It is important that it enters the oven cold.

3. Cottage cheese shortbread dough

This dough is less capricious in work than its counterparts without cottage cheese, and less high-calorie, since fermented milk product replaces half the oil.

Ingredients

• 100 g of cottage cheese;
• 100 g butter;
• 180 g flour;
• ½ teaspoon of soda;
• ½ teaspoon salt.

Cooking

Rub the cottage cheese through a sieve, grate the cold butter on a grater. Mix both ingredients with a fork, add flour, soda and salt. Quickly knead the dough until homogeneous mass, put in a bag and put in the refrigerator for an hour.

What to do next

If there is a pie on the menu, then roll out the dough to the size of the mold, pierce it several times with a fork so that it does not swell, cover parchment paper and load it up. Special heat-resistant balls or beans, peas can act as a weighting agent. This design is baked for about 15 minutes at a temperature of 180 ° C. Then remove the load, lay out the filling of the pie and bring to readiness.

It is better to choose the filling, adjusted for the sugar content in the dough. Unsweetened chopped is suitable for quiches with filling, pies with meat and vegetables. Dough with added sugar will be the basis for fruit and berry

Baskets are also baked, only the cooking time must be reduced in proportion to the decrease in the size of the cakes. It is enough to bring cookies and other small products in the oven to a light blush, otherwise they will be too hard.

Managing partner of the culinary school "Bread and Food", author of cookbooks, TV presenter Alena Spirina

Yes! And we, continuing our acquaintance with various types of dough, will make a smooth transition from sweet shortbread to unsweetened crumbly dough. It is not very popular in our country, although it makes excellent pies, pies and just snack cookies. This great alternative purchased puff yeast-free dough!

The most common use for unsweetened crumbly dough is an open pie filled with egg and cream, known as quiche. famous american pies with apples or berries, completely closed or with a grate, they also bake from it. Moreover, the legendary twelve shortcakes for the iconic Soviet homemade "Napoleon" were rolled out from this very dough, consisting of flour, fat, salt and minimum quantity liquids.

Dough composition and choice of ingredients

Like shortcrust pastry, crumbly unsweetened dough becomes so solely due to the high - at least 50% of the mass of flour - fat content. Fat envelops flour particles during kneading, preventing the formation of strong protein bonds. Then, during baking, the fat melts, the moisture evaporates, and the dough becomes crumbly and light.

Unsweetened crumbly dough differs from shortcrust pastry not only in the absence of sugar, but also in the presence of a fairly significant volume of liquid. The liquid is either an egg (or only the yolk) and milk (cream or sour cream), or cold water mixed with vodka or vinegar. The rest of the ingredients are the same: flour, fat, salt.

Flour

Most often, for kneading crumbly dough, choose wheat flour premium. It makes sense to start acquaintance with it, but as you gain experience, you can begin to switch to first-grade flour or whole grain flour, first partially, and then completely. good dough comes from spelled flour or from a mixture of wheat flour and other cereals and legumes: rye, oat, buckwheat, corn, soy. Of course, you will have to find the right ratio of flour and liquid yourself, but this is not so difficult. Start by replacing 10% of the total flour, and then look at the circumstances. Of course, any new flour affects the properties of the dough, as well as the taste, color, aroma. If the dough and filling match, you'll be fine!

Liquid

If in shortbread dough the liquid is represented by eggs (whole, protein or yolk), sometimes with a small addition of milk, then for kneading unsweetened crumbly dough, either the combination “egg (yolk) + water (milk)” or “water + vodka (vinegar)” is chosen. ". This is the main recommendation, but according to the circumstances, you can use sour cream, yogurt, and cottage cheese.

For the classic French dough "pat breeze" (Pate Brise) for a glass of flour (150 g), take 100-110 g of butter, 1 egg yolk and 30 g of milk. By its properties, this dough is very similar to shortbread, only unsweetened: the same tender and crumbly thanks to butter and yolk.

The variant with water and vodka gives the effect of a more layered dough, it is also crumbly, but not as tender as a breeze. Because gluten does not develop in the presence of alcohol, doughs kneaded with equal parts water and vodka have less developed gluten than doughs kneaded with water alone. As a result, a more tender and layered dough. In addition, mixtures of water and vodka can be added to the dough more than just water, so that the dough is easier to knead and roll out without fear that it will become rough and hard. Remember that a little vinegar was always added to the dough for homemade Napoleon cakes. Vinegar, being an acid, destroys flour proteins, and the dough is tender and brittle.

The choice of fat affects more than just flavor and aroma. ready dough, but also on its structure. The higher the fat content in the dough, the more crumbly the dough will be. Butter is the most familiar product, but the combination of butter and margarine works great. Recipe

Oil gives the dough a pleasant taste and aroma, but it contains water, which contributes to the development of gluten. There is no water in margarine, besides, it does not melt so much from the heat of the hands, and the dough is kneaded easier. The French use rendered duck, goose or pork fat- lard, and the British - interior beef fat. The dough turns out simply luxurious, melts in your mouth. And no foreign smell! If possible, try it. Only the amount of liquid will have to be slightly increased, because in animal fat it is not at all.

The ratio of flour to fat varies from recipe to recipe. The higher the fat content, the more crumbly and tender the dough will be. This factor is especially important to consider when choosing a recipe for the base of an open pie: too crumbly dough will not hold heavy and/or bulky stuffing.

Salt and sugar

Salt is an essential ingredient of any dough, it harmonizes the taste. Often in recipes for unsweetened dough there is not a large number of powdered sugar or fine sugar. It doesn’t really affect the taste, it just browns the dough better. If you don't want to add sugar, don't.

Dough kneading

It is important that all dough ingredients are cold. Cut the butter into cubes and put in the refrigerator along with the measured liquid. Take out the oil and liquid just before kneading the dough.

To prepare a crumbly dough, butter is mixed with flour until the smallest particles are formed, no matter how it is done. Like shortbread dough, unsweetened crumbly dough can be kneaded by hand, in the bowl of a food processor, or in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment. There is only one goal: to get crumbs from flour and fat. The crumb can be about the same size and resemble wet sand, or it can contain fairly large pieces of fat ranging in size from a grain of rice to a bean. In the first case, the dough after baking will look like shortbread, in the second, a variant of the “false puff pastry” will turn out.

You need to add just enough liquid so that all the flour is moistened and the dough comes together in a lump that does not crumble in your hands.

If you are kneading the dough with vodka and water, use all the vodka first and add water as needed. Very often, when kneading, much less liquid is used than indicated in the recipe. So do not rush to add it all at once.

If the dough is dry and asks for just a few drops of water, sprinkle it with a spray bottle.

Divide the kneaded dough into parts, wrap with cling film or put in a plastic bag, flatten into a disc and put in the refrigerator. If the dough will be stored in the freezer, be sure to label the package so that there are no unpleasant surprises.

Always knead the dough with a margin: removing excess dough from the mold is easier than stretching a small amount of dough to fit the mold. And bake snack cookies from scraps and leftovers. Just roll out the dough, cut with a knife or cookie cutters, sprinkle with coarse sea salt, grated cheese, cumin, sesame seeds, poppy seeds (any seeds) and bake in an oven preheated to 190-200 degrees.

Yes, and have on hand a delicious universal homemade dough always helpful! Recipe

Bakery products

At all stages of work with crumbly dough it is important to keep it cold: kneaded - in the refrigerator, rolled out - in the refrigerator, covered with dough form - in the refrigerator. Only in this way the dough is well stabilized and will not shrink and slide off the sides of the mold during baking, and it will be possible to do without baking under pressure (“blind baking”).

It is most convenient to roll out the dough between two pieces of film or baking paper and move them on them. Make sure that the dough is the same thickness everywhere - 2-3 mm, unless otherwise indicated in the recipe. Before baking, prick the dough with a fork so that it does not bubble during baking.

Even if you bake in the form of non-stick coating, do not be too lazy to cover the bottom with baking paper or put paper ribbons 5-7 cm wide - “slings” crosswise in the form. This will make it much easier to transfer the finished cake from the mold to the cooling rack.

Loose dough and products from it are baked in an oven well preheated to 180-210 degrees.

You can bake pies on a preheated bread stone or baking tray. From the heat coming from below, the bottom of the cake will bake faster and more evenly.

Unsweetened crumbly dough (Pate Brise)

Photo: / Arseniy Kosterin

For one open cake with a diameter of 24-26 cm:

Ingredients:

Flour - 1 cup
Butter at room temperature - 110 g
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Egg yolk - 1 pc.
Cold milk - 2 tbsp. l.

How to cook:

1. Cut the butter into pieces of arbitrary shape.

2. Sift flour into a bowl or work surface and sprinkle with salt.

3. Put the pieces of butter on the surface of the flour mixture. With a knife or fork, chop the flour with butter until fine crumbs form.

4. Collect the crumbs in a slide, make a well in the middle and pour the yolk and one tablespoon of milk into it.

5. Use your fingertips to mix the ingredients into soft dough and collect into a ball. If the dough crumbles, add another tablespoon of milk. Knead the dough 2-4 times - it will become homogeneous. Form into a ball, flatten into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, preferably 4 hours.

Photo: / Arseniy Kosterin

Ingredients:

Dough Pate Brise - 250 g
Cooked chicken meat (boiled, fried or baked) - 350 g
Starch (preferably corn starch) - 1 tbsp. l.
Cream with a fat content of 20-22% - 750 ml
Eggs - 7 pcs.
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Black pepper - 1/4 tsp
grated nutmeg- pinch
Ground cayenne pepper - pinch
Hard cheese - 180 g

How to cook:

1. Cut the chicken meat into 1.5-2 cm pieces. Grate the cheese on a coarse grater. Recipe

2. Line a baking dish with a diameter of 24 cm with vertical sides 5 cm high with slings of baking paper. Preheat oven to 190 degrees.

3. Roll out the dough into a circle with a diameter of at least 30 cm (dough thickness 2-2.5 mm), transfer to a mold so that the dough hangs slightly from the sides. Using your fingertips, press the dough around the entire perimeter of the mold. Trim off excess dough with a knife. Prick the bottom and sides of the dough with a fork. Place in refrigerator for 20-30 minutes.

4. Put the mold in the oven and bake the dough for 15-20 minutes. It will get stronger, but almost not redden. Brush the bottom and sides of the pan with the white of one egg, sprinkle with a thin layer of cheese and return to the oven for 2 minutes. Remove the form with the dough and wait 10-15 minutes.

5. Lower the oven temperature to 160-165 degrees.

6. Prepare the filling. Grind starch with a little cream into a smooth paste. Add the rest of the eggs (including the yolk and the remaining white from the brushing) along with a pinch of salt (remember, the cheese is salty too) and beat lightly with a whisk, add the remaining cream, season with black and cayenne pepper and nutmeg.

7. Put half the chicken pieces on the bottom of the dough basket, fill with half egg mixture. Sprinkle with half of the remaining cheese. Lay out the second half of the meat, pour the remaining filling. Sprinkle with cheese.

8. Bake the quiche for at least an hour, until the filling at a distance of 2 cm from the dough springs when pressed with a finger, and the surface is slightly browned.

9. Remove the quiche from the oven, place on a wire rack and wait for it to cool completely, at least two hours.

10. Lifting the edges of the paper, pull the quiche out of the mold (or remove the side of the split mold). Serve the quiche at room temperature or reheat in the oven or microwave.

Photo: / Arseniy Kosterin

Ingredients:

Dough Pate Brise - 250 g
Sour cream with a fat content of 20-25% - 200 ml
Egg yolks - 4 pcs.
Egg - 1 pc.
Fine sugar - 100 g
Pitted cherries - 350 g

How to cook:

1. Turn on the oven to heat up to 190 degrees. Place a baking sheet in the oven to heat up. Line the bottom of a 22-24cm tin with parchment paper.

2. Roll out the dough into a circle with a diameter of 28-30 cm and transfer to a mold. Press to the bottom and sides, being careful not to stretch the dough. Prick the dough with a fork, brush with egg white, cover with cling film and refrigerate.

3. Prepare the filling by mixing the yolks and the rest of the protein with sugar and sour cream.

4. Put the form with the dough in the oven on a hot baking sheet and bake for 17-20 minutes until golden brown.

5. Remove the form from the oven, fill with berries and pour over the egg-sour cream mixture. Reduce the temperature to 170 degrees, return the mold to the oven and bake the cake for 40-45 minutes, until the filling is set and browned.

6. Move the form to the wire rack, leave for 5-7 minutes. Remove the cake from the mold and cool completely on a wire rack. Serve cold.

Shortcrust pastry in different interpretations is found on the Internet. How to understand them?

The easiest recipe is Pâte Sablée. It comes in two varieties - sweet (most often) and savory. Today we are talking about savory. Ideal for different kind open pies and. Conveniently, unlike other types of shortcrust pastry - Pate Brisee - no need to cool the ingredients to the desired temperature. And the most important thing for me is the property of Pâte Sablée - no need to bake the base separately from the filling. The dough does not absorb moisture very actively, so this dough is ideal for pies with a liquid filling.

You will need:

• 125 g butter
• 200 g flour
• 1 egg

There are different proportions of the dough, when exactly 2 times more flour is taken than butter. But in practice, I checked that in our case the dough is very tender, crispy and crumbly. The structure will not be stone and rigid. First, let's take a look at what role each ingredient plays in the test. After that, everything will fall into place.

Let's talk about the ingredients for the shortcrust pastry first.

Butter.

Many bakers buy special margarine for baking, but make it a rule - these special margarines will not give you a great result. There is a lot of oil in this recipe, it is it that prevents the flour from sticking together, it is the oil that is responsible for the friability of the shortcrust pastry. Any margarine is undoubtedly cheaper, but the composition leaves much to be desired. Incomprehensible vegetable fats that are poorly excreted from the body. Why do you need it? Then margarine still has a specific taste, so cheating will not work. Even if the dough looks right, the taste will suffer greatly from this. On the Internet you can find a lot of information on request: is it possible to replace butter with margarine in shortcrust pastry? So my answer will merge with the chorus of French confectioners: no, you can’t.

Flour

In the store, eyes run wide from various types of flour.
Choose the one suitable for baking bakery products. You can find markings on the packaging of flour, but more on that another time. Now we will be interested in gluten in flour. Gluten is now often referred to as gluten. This is a complex protein that is part of the grains. The presence of gluten affects the consistency of the dough. For simplicity, gluten is formed when dough is kneaded after flour has come into contact with water. Therefore, when making tender shortcrust pastry, try to interfere as little as possible. Easily. Then your dessert will turn out crumbly.
And before cooking, sift the flour, this will saturate it with oxygen and get rid of possible unwanted impurities.

Eggs.

Eggs in shortcrust pastry stick all the ingredients together. The main role egg white, it acts like glue.

Salt.

A pinch of salt will add brightness to the dough and get rid of freshness.

Cooking

Step 1

Take the flour, chop the butter into it, add 1 egg, salt and start kneading. You will get a crumb, which after a couple of minutes will begin to bind, forming a soft and elastic shortbread dough.

Step 2

Ready dough wrap in cling film and place in the refrigerator. The processes of interaction of ingredients will continue. In 20-30 minutes you will have a wonderful dough.

Step 3

Properly prepared product from shortcrust pastry turns out to be tender and crumbly, with a pleasant aroma of butter. In order for your dough to turn out just like that, you need to take flour and butter by weight in a ratio of 5 to 4. However, dough prepared only on the basis of good flour and high-quality butter turns out to be too fragile. To avoid this, it is enough to mix butter with vegetable solid fat in a ratio of 3 to 1. Such a finished product is more tender, with delicate aroma butter.
The French, according to culinary tradition, at the end of cooking lightly knead the dough with the base of the palm. This makes the flour and butter blend better. This technique is called fressage. We will talk about it in the description of the cooking process.

Shortcrust pastry ingredients for savory pastries.

Flour - 140 g
Butter - 85 g
Vegetable fat (solid) - 30 g (2 tablespoons)
Water - 3-4.5 tbsp.
Salt - 0.5 tsp
Sugar (optional, for color) - pinch

How to cook shortcrust pastry for savory pastries.

1. I want to note right away that shortcrust pastry can be prepared both manually and with the help of a food processor. Let's consider both options. The first way is manual. Shortbread dough needs to be kneaded very quickly so that the butter does not have time to melt in the dough, not only can the butter melt from the heat of our hands (excessive touching with the dough), but it can also be quite warm in the kitchen. If you get used to the dough, you can quite deftly knead it, touching it only with your fingertips, without using your palms.
2. Creamy and vegetable oil before mixing, all ingredients for the dough must first be cooled, then cut into small pieces. We send the oil to a large bowl, then put all the other ingredients in a bowl, except water (flour, salt and sugar). We put sugar at will, it gives the dough a beautiful color. So, rub all the ingredients with your fingertips until the oil turns into small pieces. You should not rub the mass too much, we still have time to do this. Next, we send ice water to the pounded mass, mix the dough with one hand, folding the palm with a boat, and collect the dough in a lump. If the whole dough does not fit in your palm, sprinkle it with a small amount of ice water (up to 1 tbsp) and add to the main mass. Next, we roll something like a ball out of the dough with quick and confident movements. The resulting dough should be soft and holding its shape, but in no case sticky.
3. Next, consider the second option for preparing shortcrust pastry - using a food processor. Of course, this method is easier, because the machine will do almost everything for you. For this amount of ingredients, a 1 liter bowl will be enough (if desired, you can increase the amount of all ingredients several times and use a large bowl of a combine). We put a nozzle with a knife in the bowl of the combine, we fill in all the bulk ingredients (flour, salt and sugar). We cut the chilled butter and vegetable fat into small pieces (for the convenience of mixing the dough), while trying to touch the butter as little as possible with our hands. We send it to the bowl of the combine and turn it on 4-5 times in the Pulse mode. Then we add ice water and immediately turn on the combine again 2-3 times in the Pulse mode. If enough water is added, then the dough should gradually gather on the blades of the knife attachment. Otherwise, add quite a bit more water (gradually - add a drop, turn on the combine, check if this amount of water is enough, add it again if necessary, etc.). Very soon, the dough will begin to gather in a lump, you can stop at this with kneading, so as not to overdo it. We spread the finished dough on the work surface and proceed to kneading.
4. We will apply the fresage method. Using the base of the palm, we press on the edge of the dough and smear it with quick and confident movements 15 cm away from us. In this way, knead the whole dough. Next, using a spatula, we collect all the dough “in a heap” and form a ball out of it. Wrap it up cling film or waxed paper and send in the cold so that the dough “gets stronger” (for 1 hour in the freezer or in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours or overnight).
By the way, this dough can be stored in the refrigerator for 2-3 days or in the freezer for 2-3 weeks.
5. As we said above, shortbread dough, containing a large amount of oil, needs minimal contact with hands. The same applies to rolling, you need to do it quickly and confidently, otherwise the dough will melt, after which it will be impossible to work with it. Turn the chilled dough out onto a floured work surface and dust the dough with flour as well. We put a rolling pin in the middle of the lump of dough and roll it back and forth several times with confident movements, slightly pressing it against the dough so that the dough starts to move. Next, we put the rolling pin just below the middle of the cake and begin to roll it out with even movements away from ourselves, not reaching the edge of the dough by 2-3 cm. from time to time sprinkle the dough with flour. As a result, we should get a circle with a thickness of 3 mm. The diameter of the circle should be 3 cm larger than the diameter of the pan in which you will cook the cake. It often happens (especially for novice housewives) that the dough circle turns out to be uneven, in which case you should cut off the protruding edges and put them where there is not enough dough. The rolled dough must be used immediately, otherwise it will melt.
6. The pie dough is ready. The only thing left is to put the dough into a baking dish, and put the intended filling on top. It can be anything: cheese, bacon, sausage, vegetables, mushrooms. Very often made from shortcrust pastry open pies, eg, french quiche with open walls that support the filling. In France, a baking ring is used for such pies: they place it on a baking sheet, and the dough is carefully placed in the ring itself. When the cake is ready, the ring is simply lifted up, and the cake is transferred to a dish. You can also use a round baking dish with straight sides 4 cm high and a removable bottom. form with ready-made pie put on some container (for example, a jar), carefully lower the sides of the form, after which the cake is carefully transferred to the dish.