These super crumbly cookies are perfect for breakfast or five o’clock tea. A tasty and tender break. A dough with hard-boiled egg yolks, powdered sugar, and corn starch, also ideal for those with gluten issues as flour can be replaced with potato starch. Easy to prepare and delicious filled with fruit jams or chocolate.
A delicious variant of shortcrust pastry that seems to have originated around the 14th century; even though the Romans already used flour and butter to prepare simple sweets. Over time the recipe, or rather the recipes, took shape and with different techniques the shortcrust pastry we know with its various processing differences was obtained.
This dough is used for cookies, small pastries, pies, and artworks; it incredibly lends itself to creating works of high sophistication.
There are different points of view on shortcrust pastry, an infinity of recipes, certainly what cannot be missing is butter and the refrigerator, then the variations are endless. Whether it’s sandy, whipped, or classic, you never tire of producing delightful pastries with shortcrust pastry.
Shortcrust passion… Discover more recipes
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Inexpensive
- Rest time: 1 Hour
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 30 cookies
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
For shortcrust, everything is needed… Flour, eggs, and sugar. What a difference.
- 1 1/3 cups flour
- 3/4 cup corn starch
- 2/3 cup butter
- 2/3 cup powdered sugar
- 3 yolks (hard-boiled)
- to taste vanilla flavor (or lemon or orange peel)
Useful Tools
- Stand Mixers
- Bowls
- Molds
- Rolling Pins
- Mats
Steps
The dough needs to be worked quickly and after resting you can form the cookies
Often people are scared of the time it takes to make something good in the kitchen; in reality, if we organize, we can do many things. For example, in this case, we can make the dough, let it rest until the morning or evening, cut the shapes, and bake or freeze and bake when time allows, naturally, we can plan all the steps ahead.
First, harden the eggs to have them cold when needed. Start working the flour, the starch with the cold butter until obtaining a loose and sandy mixture.
Then add the sugar and finely sifted yolks and flavors. Work for a few minutes until obtaining a soft dough. The shortcrust should be worked very little to preserve its crumbliness.
Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest in the refrigerator until use, and in any case, no less than an hour.
After the necessary time, take the shortcrust and roll it into a sheet about 1/8 inch thick; cut with the desired molds and bake immediately or arrange on parchment paper and freeze, and then transfer to bags. Or let rest in the refrigerator until cooking. If you think it will take more than an hour, I advise covering with plastic wrap to avoid absorbing other odors.
Bake in a preheated oven at 340°F for about 15 minutes; they should not have an overly pronounced color. To enjoy them at their best, let them cool.
Some More Tips
Excellent on their own sprinkled with powdered sugar. They can be filled with custard or chocolate and also fruit jams. Delicious coated with chocolate after pairing them with hazelnut cream. They keep for a week in a dry place out of the fridge.
