Good morning friends! Today I have a new basic recipe for you, a whole grain rice flour shortcrust pastry (therefore, it’s a gluten-free pastry) with whole cane muscovado sugar. Quite a long title 😃 for a recipe that is actually very simple. As simple as all shortcrust pastries, which collectively are my favorite basic sweet recipes. Because you can never go wrong with shortcrust pastries. 😊

Until now, I had always used rice flour mixed with other flours, but this time I wanted to try using it in its pure form.

I had in mind the memory of some deliciously crumbly cookies my mom made a few years ago, which she said she copied from one of her cookbooks, so I decided to replicate them.

We eagerly searched together for the recipe by flipping through all her books, but unfortunately, we couldn’t find it. I also flipped through about ten of my books, but not a single one turned up! I have lots of cookbooks, but not a single recipe for cookies or shortcrust pastry with rice flour! It seems impossible; sometimes I wonder if my memories are real! Haha help!! 🤭😄

Well, I got stubborn and tried anyway. In the end, as I’ve done before (memorable was the time of the avocado shortcrust pastry I will never forget), if you start with the classic recipe, which is the mother of all shortcrust pastries, you can’t go wrong! Don’t you agree?

Then, since I was at it, I tried using the whole cane muscovado sugar as well. I bought a bag from fair trade a while ago, which, I must admit, I don’t use habitually even though I like it a lot because it’s very dark and gives off an intense, covering color, as you can see from the photos. But this time, the final color of the shortcrust pastry didn’t seem like a reason to desist. And then this sugar has an aromatic aftertaste that I thought would pair well with the rice flour, flavoring it without having to add anything else, so this time I didn’t use lemon zest or vanilla.

PS: After the fact (and cookies eaten), I had the idea that orange zest would be the right additional aroma, so I’ll try it soon, and for now, I invite you to a future update! 😃💪

And here you have other shortcrust pastries I’ve prepared – with a “why not, let’s try!” spirit – starting from my classic shortcrust pastry:

whole grain rice flour and muscovado shortcrust pastry

Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Cheap
Rest time: 30 Minutes
Preparation time: 10 Minutes
Portions: 1 dough
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: All seasons

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups whole grain rice flour
1/3 cup whole cane sugar (muscovado)
5 tbsp butter
1 egg (large)
1/2 tsp baking powder

Tools

Bowl glass

Steps

Pour the rice flour (whole grain) into a bowl.
Add the half teaspoon of baking powder, muscovado sugar, the egg, and the butter in pieces.
Work with the fingertips until the sugar is dissolved and the butter well crushed (i.e., reduced to a sticky cream). Gradually incorporate the flour.
Initially, the mixture is very crumbly.
☝ If you think it’s needed, you can add a tablespoon of milk or water. For me, it wasn’t necessary, probably because I used a large egg instead of the medium egg I usually use, a small difference that in sweets, however, does matter.
Once the dough is obtained, place it in the fridge for the classic half an hour.
👉 The time in the fridge – and it applies to all shortcrust pastries, especially those with butter – is useful because it cools and solidifies the butter, which softened with the manual work, making the dough easier to handle. If you’re in a hurry to proceed with the recipe, nothing happens if you shorten the time in the fridge, or if you don’t do it at all. In this second case, it’s better to work the mixture very quickly so that the butter remains as cold as possible.
Tip: A useful trick is to cut the dough into two or more pieces: put in the fridge in pieces it cools down faster, also I recommend not to take out the whole dough from the fridge but just take a piece to start preparing the recipe (for example the first cookies or the tart base) and in the meantime leave the other pieces in the fridge. 😉
I’ll see you tomorrow with the first of the recipes I’ve made with this whole grain rice flour shortcrust pastry with whole cane muscovado sugar.
See you tomorrow! 🤗