No matter how many doctors talked about the dangers of sugar, but the people who easily give up sweets for tea, not so much. Juicy homemade pies, sweet biscuits and, of course, make the shortbread tea party really enjoyable. The aroma of fresh biscuits - a scent of comfort, peace, love and harmony.

Such different cookies

It is believed that shortbread was invented in Italy. According to legend, it was decided to combine the Italian pastry fats, flour and sugar to create a mouth-watering biscuits, crisp, as if stuck together in the sand mud pies. Over time, there were many recipes for dough, and now it is difficult to determine which of them appeared before the others.

Confectioners added to the short pastry eggs or egg yolks, flour of different grades, sour cream, starch, cocoa, chocolate, coffee, candied fruits and dried fruits, ground and chopped nuts. Despite the fact that the original shortbread dough does not add any leavening agents, today it is often put, and baking powder, which makes the products bulky and soft.

For the baking of sweet biscuits uses a variety of spices. The most popular are vanilla Vanilla: sweet tenderness   and cinnamon, and bake cookies with lemon or orange peel, ginger, cloves, anise, Dittany Star anise: Anise sworn brother   and other spices. There are even recipes for savory shortcake with cumin and pepper.

And that's not all. Ready-made pastry is connected in pairs, cover glazes, creams, soufflés, boiled condensed milk or jam, and sometimes use all stuffing immediately. As a result, there are more and more new varieties of cookie dough. You can even prepare a daily pastries, without repeating: recipes for cookies very, very much. A taste of the final product will depend not only on the filler, but above all on how cooked shortcrust dough.

Secrets of dough

Since the foundation of dough are fat, they should pay particular attention. Cookies industrial production is always prepared in margarine, margarine and poor quality - it helps reduce the cost of manufacturing sweets. But if customer makes better use of baking natural butter. Firstly, a cookie will be more useful than the cookie and margarine, and secondly, it will have a soft creamy flavor.

In addition to the oil of the shortcake must include flour and sugar. Interestingly, many bakers prefer to use even sugar, and powdered - as liver gets more delicious. Eggs are added as desired. If you only use the egg yolks, the taste of the cookie will be richer and more tender, and if add the egg whole, will change the consistency of goodies - it will become stronger and more brittle. In some cases, a hard-boiled egg yolks boiled before adding to the dough - it allows you to get the original consistency and special flavor pastries.

Sometimes shortbread dough add sour cream Smetana: untold riches of Russian cuisine , Cheese, spirits, ground nuts, oatmeal or bran, baking powder. All these additives are not binding, but they can do more original taste of the cookie.

Test Preparation

Prepared according to the rules of confectionary art shortbread dough turns out very tender and crumbly. How to cook it? All the ingredients for making the dough must be the same temperature. And here about what should be the temperature, opinions diverge confectioners. Some argue that we should use only cold foods, fast mixing them so that the oil has not had time to melt. Others, however, use the softened or melted butter, mixing it with other ingredients.

Converge master confectionery business in one: the less used for cooking pastry flour, the more delicate dough is obtained. A meal out is the smaller, less liquid in the test. Therefore, the best effect is given boiled egg yolks and butter ice, grated. However, you can cook delicious shortbread and melted butter on the basis of: the main thing - to add the flour in small portions.

Mix the ingredients to be fast. After this short pastry must be given 'rest' in the fridge for at least an hour. During this time, the melted butter hardens, the dough becomes more dense and, therefore, out of it will be more convenient to cook biscuits.

Baking

Sometimes shortbread dough is spread with a layer and cut out a figure. Sometimes the future with the help of cookies culinary syringe is deposited directly onto a baking tray. Sometimes simply cookie spread in the form of balls or cakes or baked one layer, which is then cut into pieces. There are many options, and they are all in their own good. In any case, bake cookies dry, ungreased baking - because of the high fat content in the cookie dough does not stick to the surface. You can also use baking paper or silicone mat. Baking time depends on the size and thickness of the liver, but generally does not exceed twenty minutes.

Design Ideas

Cookies glaze always looks elegant. And do not even cover the full cookie icing - enough to put on a strip of melted chocolate to treat ordinary transformed into an attractive dessert. It can be used not only chocolate coating, but also a protein, sugar-based powder. Multi-colored glazed cookie - a magnificent dessert that kids adore. A little trick: if you can not apply an even layer of glaze, it can hide the flaws of dressing using pastry, chopped nuts or coconut.

Great idea - cookies, glued in pairs. Prepare them no more difficult than normal, single. Joining cookies, you can use a thick jam, melted chocolate, cooked condensed milk or pastry cream.

Maria Bykov

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