Shortcrust pastry is one of the most used bases in classic and traditional pastry but is also often found in modern cakes. Easy to prepare, absolutely within everyone’s reach, it is used for making tarts, cookies, tartlets, cream tarts, and modern tarts.
The recipe I am leaving you today is Iginio Massari’s Milano shortcrust pastry and it is taken from one of his pastry books. Perfect for tarts and cookies, it is aromatic and crumbly. The use of powdered sugar makes it fine and delicate on the palate, ideal for fruit-based petit fours and tea biscuits.
There is a technical classification of shortcrust pastry and its variations that is drawn up based on the percentage of the ingredients it is composed of (flour, sugar, butter, eggs). To create the variations correctly, of course, you need to know how to balance the ingredients correctly.
The Milano shortcrust pastry is composed of the same amount of sugar and butter; the sum of these two ingredients is identical to the weight of the flour while the weight of the eggs is always 10% of the total of the other three ingredients (flour, sugar, and butter).
Translated more simply, this is the correct proportion of the ingredients to obtain the Milano shortcrust pastry:
1000 g of flour
500 g of butter
500 g of sugar
200 g of eggs
to which we will add: flavors, salt, and possibly yeast.
Always respecting these percentages substitutions can be made; we can, for example, remove a small part of the flour and replace it with cocoa or remove a small part of the sugar and replace it with honey just as Iginio Massari did in his version. In addition, a few grams of yeast can be added to obtain a softer shortcrust.
Before moving on to the recipe, here are other pastry bases to try:
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Economical
- Rest time: 3 Hours
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: for 500 g of shortcrust pastry
- Cooking methods: No cooking
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
- Energy 457.67 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 60.10 (g) of which sugars 24.74 (g)
- Proteins 6.97 (g)
- Fat 22.07 (g) of which saturated 13.95 (g)of which unsaturated 7.83 (g)
- Fibers 1.12 (g)
- Sodium 95.43 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 100 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
- 2 cups cups all-purpose flour (weak, around 150W)
- 1 cup cups butter
- 3/4 cup cups powdered sugar (or granulated)
- 2 tbsps tbsps acacia honey
- 1/4 cup cups eggs (about 1 medium egg)
- 1/4 vanilla bean (or a teaspoon of vanilla extract)
- 1 tsp lemon zest (grated)
- 1/8 tsp tsp salt
Tools
- 1 Stand mixer
- 1 Scale
- Plastic wrap
Procedure
Place the butter, honey, sugar, vanilla, and grated lemon zest in the bowl of the stand mixer (with K beater). Mix the ingredients very well without whipping them.
Add the salt and eggs, incorporating them slowly to blend well with the butter and sugar mixture.
Add the sifted flour, working the shortcrust briefly, just enough to incorporate the ingredients and make the mixture homogeneous.
Pour the shortcrust onto the lightly floured work surface and compact it. Form a low, wide block, wrap it with plastic wrap, and place it in the fridge to stabilize for 3 hours or better yet, overnight.
Iginio Massari’s Milano shortcrust pastry is ready, use it for your creations.
After resting in the fridge, you can use the shortcrust to make the desserts you prefer; each dessert will have a different baking time. Here are some guidelines for the simplest preparations:
For cookies
Roll out the shortcrust to a thickness of 1/4 inch, cut out the cookies with the cutters you have available, and let them rest in the fridge while the oven heats up.
Bake them in a preheated static oven at 338°F (170°C) for 10/12 minutes.
If you want to get soft cookies, just add 3 g of baking powder to the flour before kneading the shortcrust.
For tartsFor filled tarts, baking times vary based on the filling and the thickness of the shortcrust.
For a shortcrust shell with blind baking, roll out the shortcrust to 1/8 inch, line the perforated or classic mold, and bake at 338°F (170°C) for 20/25 minutes.
Tips
Storage
The Milano shortcrust pastry by Iginio Massari can be stored in the fridge well-covered for up to 15 days, but it is important to use fresh and high-quality ingredients.
It can be frozen for 2 months.
