Chopped dough

If you don’t know how else to surprise your loved ones and please yourself, make a pie from chopped dough. This is such a base for baking, which in texture and taste resembles something between shortcrust and puff pastry. But it is much easier to cook it, for which modern hostesses love it so much. How to do this, we analyze “on the shelves.”

Features and characteristics

There is some confusion in culinary terminology: chopped dough is often called shortbread, and puff pastry is chopped. In fact, there is some truth here, chopped is very similar to both. In order not to get confused, it is worth knowing what types of this test are. But first of all, let’s take a closer look at what it is.

Chopped dough is called so because it is, in the literal sense, chopped (oil is, as it were, driven into flour). True, modern technologies and the benefits of civilization significantly save the time of modern chefs. So, flour preparation will come out of the same quality if you use a combine or mixer. The easiest and “angry” way is to grate the butter.

The basic composition includes liquid, flour and fat. All components during cooking must be at a low temperature (preferably very cold). This combination and method of preparation does not allow gluten to form, so the dough does not come out viscous or viscous, but crumbly.

There is chopped “sand”, in the process of preparing such a blank, a minimum of liquid is used. Chop the dough into the smallest pieces, sometimes it is called “chopped to corn grits”. Such preparation can be sweet or savory.

The second option is chopped “false puff”. In general, if you want something from puff pastry, you need to cook it. It practically does not differ in taste and texture from real puff pastry, but it takes much less effort. During its preparation, the oil is crushed to inhomogeneous pieces, relatively large. More liquid will be required in such a blank.

Also, depending on the desired result, eggs, cottage cheese, baking powder can be added to the main ingredients. As a result, completely different versions of the test come out, with different areas of application.

Secrets of Successful Baking

It is not at all difficult to prepare such a dough, the main thing is not to deviate from the general rules and do everything carefully. To get a tasty and high-quality chopped dough, it is important to pay attention to each ingredient.

Flour. The main component of the preparation should contain as little gluten as possible. Special formulations for baking, as a rule, on the contrary, contain a lot of it for viscosity. “Extra” is best, but in the absence of a special type of flour, you can use any.

Liquid. Most often, ordinary water is used here. Dairy and sour-milk products are less commonly used: sour cream, kefir, yogurt. Eggs also do this well. Although the traditional chopped dough recipe contains exactly water, this is why amazing pastries come out with it.

Fat. This is a very important component and a stumbling block for many cooks: some cook exclusively with butter, others do not mind margarine. In general, margarine is not going through its best years today, as we now know that these are dangerous trans fats. However, it used to be an indispensable ingredient for bakers.

For the preparation of chopped dough, it is easier to use it, since margarine has a higher melting point than butter. It is easier to work with and the texture always turns out, even for beginners. But with oil, the taste, nevertheless, is brighter and more tender.

Salt and acid. Salt must be mixed with flour before oil gets into it. This component will bring together all the tastes, it must be added even if sweet pastries are planned. By the way, if sugar is added, it must be treated in the same way as with salt.

The acid helps the layers form, loosens the dough and makes it even more tender. Reviews of experienced chefs recommend adding lemon juice to the water, and if you use kefir, you don’t need to do this, the acid will already be there.

It is also important to pay attention to the temperature of all ingredients and equipment. The oil should not just be cold, it is recommended to put it in the freezer for half an hour before cooking. If during the kneading process there are signs of fat melting, it is urgent to collect the entire mass into a lump and return it to the cold so that everything freezes again.

It is also better to cool the inventory that will be involved in cooking (knife, bowl, board, parts of a mixer or combine). Nothing should melt, mix, melt. The liquid should also be ice cold.

Preparation of chopped “short” dough

So, we figured out what ingredients we need for the dough, and how it can be made. Whichever option is chosen, the same proportion scheme always applies: 1-2-3. It means that three parts of flour will require two parts of fat and one part of water (sour cream, kefir, milk). True, in different recipes, this ratio may vary. But in case you need to cook quickly, and not surf the cookbook, you can safely use this scheme – the dough will definitely turn out.

“Sandy” dough, as we have already mentioned, is obtained by grinding the ingredients to the size of a cereal. But here it is important not to overdo it, it is also not necessary to bring it to the state of a powder, since a single homogeneous mass will be obtained. During baking, the water should heat up and evaporate, this steam will form chaotic and small cavities that resemble either layers or a loose texture. If you bring everything to homogeneity, you will not be able to create layers, rather an oil cake will come out.

You can start cooking:

1. Sift the flour, add some salt to it. If sweet pastries are planned, add sugar or powdered sugar here, if honey is used, the amount of honey must be subtracted from the amount of liquid. Mix all dry ingredients.
2. Margarine or butter should be cut into cubes and put in the freezer for 10 minutes. There are types of oils that do not become hard even in the freezer, such a product is not suitable. Moreover, such a property indicates low quality, and it is better to refuse this oil altogether.
3. If the dough is on the water, you need to add the juice of one lemon to it. Again, do not forget to keep the proportion: the amount of juice and water should form one part of the total mass. If kefir or sour cream is used, just leave them to cool well. It is important that any liquid is ice cold.
4. When everything cools down well, add fat (butter or margarine) to the flour. It is better to get some of the cold fat first, and leave the rest in the refrigerator until you need it.
5. Next, these pieces of the fatty part must be cut with a knife directly into the flour, while mixing the dry parts with butter to gently connect them. When you get a large crumb, we take out the second part of the oil from the refrigerator and continue to chop everything down to small crumbs. If in this process you notice that the fat begins to melt or just becomes too soft, immediately put everything in the freezer so that everything freezes again.
6. Then pour the ice liquid one tablespoon into the flour mixture. Pour in a little bit and mix gently, it is advisable to do this with a cold spoon so as not to heat the dough with your hands once again. It is important not to pour water, so as soon as the dough can be collected into a lump that does not crumble, we immediately collect it in a plastic bag and put it back in the cold.
7. Then this lump needs to be taken out, divided into two parts. We return one of them to the cold, and you can immediately work with the second.

So, chopped “short” dough is ready. It is suitable for open and closed pies, “turnovers”, baskets. Moreover, even if the dough is unsweetened, it is still suitable for desserts. Any kind of chopped dough can lie in the freezer for many months and not lose its properties, so you can immediately make a large portion and divide it into pieces.

Chopped puff pastry

Here the proportions remain the same, as, indeed, the sequence in cooking. The only difference is the size of the oil pieces, they will be larger than in the previous version. Sometimes such a dough requires a little more liquid, this must be monitored during the kneading process. As soon as the ball with the flour mixture can be rolled into a single whole, no more liquid is needed.

First, everything is according to the standard scheme: we remove the chopped fat to freeze to a solid state, inventory and liquid “leave” to it. While everything is freezing, sift the flour directly onto a table covered with plastic wrap, add salt there. After that, you can go in two ways: chop with a knife, as in the previous version, or do it a little easier – we are trying to simplify our task, right?

So, when the pieces of margarine or butter harden well, put them on the flour and simply roll them out with a rolling pin over the flour. In this case, the rolling pin should also be cold, if there is a hollow inside for collecting water, there will be no problems at all. You can also simply fill a glass bottle and refrigerate it. Pieces of fat will stick to the surface of the rolling pin, they are simply chopped off with a knife, sprinkled on top with a knife and rolled out again.

Over time, the flour mixture will completely mix, it will resemble plaster in appearance. The butter should mix well with the flour. Then we shift everything into a container and add a little cold liquid. Then we roll the dough and leave it in the cold until the planned preparation.

Rolling out is a separate moment in the preparation of pastries from chopped dough. It is important during the preparation process not to melt the butter or margarine, otherwise everything will go to waste. To prevent this from happening, we take a piece of dough out of the freezer and transfer it to the refrigerator, where it will reach the optimum temperature. Then quickly (and again with a cold rolling pin) roll out the layer in one direction. You can’t drive the dough in different directions so as not to warm it up: we drive it with a rolling pin from the bottom up, tear it off the dough, again from the bottom up.

The best pastries will turn out if you roll it as thin as possible. Then all the layers inside will evenly rise and bake. If you make a thick layer, the upper and lower layers will burn, and the inner ones will not cook.

Recipes with chopped dough

Any baking recipe that calls for puff pastry or shortcrust pastry can be used for chopped pastry. It is best suited for pies, tarts, baskets. For example, consider a “delicious” recipe with such a flour preparation.

French tart is an open pie and can be made with any topping, but firm apples or pears are best. Caramel will give a special aroma and taste. So, the dough is ready and freezes in the cold, we are engaged in the filling:

1. You need a glass of sugar, a little citric acid or natural juice, 2-3 tablespoons of water. All this must be mixed in a container and put on the stove, stirring slowly. When the mass boils, you can not interfere with it. Now we just wait until it becomes the right color, here everyone decides for himself: the darker the paste, the more it will be bitter.
2. After that, pour it immediately into the container where the cake will be baked. Caramel, most likely, will grab right away – you don’t need to be afraid of this, it will still melt during the baking process.
3. Prepare fruits (pears or apples). At this time, you can already take out the dough to soften a little. It is not necessary to peel the fruit from the skin, we remove only the core and cut into one medium fruit into 8 parts, or into 4 if the fruits are very small. We lay out the finished slices in a circle immediately on the caramel.
4. We roll out the dough layer, cut it in a circle and lay it on top of the fruit slices. We send everything to a hot oven and wait 35-40 minutes (1900). Then let the cake stand, turn it on a plate and leave for another 10 minutes.

Such a French pie is soaked with fragrant caramel, right down to the dough. If desired, you can add spices or fresh berries to the fruits, decorate everything with powder, chocolate chips or coconut flakes. This is the so-called flip-flop.

You can cook it easier: first make the base, fill it with filling and bake, and then pour thick caramel and let stand for about 20 minutes.

“Painful” questions about chopped dough

The butter has melted, how to rehabilitate the dough? No, alas. If during the process of chopping or rolling the fat melts, you get just a butter dough. There is only one way out of this situation – continue cooking. It will turn out a different pastry, rather without a loose or flaky texture, but also not bad. Still, 2 parts of the butter will not “pass” unnoticed, and next time try to make chopped again, over time it will turn out no more difficult than scrambled eggs.

Can leftover dough (cuttings) be used? From what is left, you can make cookies or the same baskets. The main thing is not to collect everything again in a lump. Just put one piece on top of the other and roll out.

The dough is torn, how to roll out and transfer? If the layer is torn during rolling, it is not scary. It can be “patched” with a piece of dough or simply pinched and rolled out again. So that during carrying it does not tear, it is better to wind it on a rolling pin. If the layer of dough comes first in baking, it can be folded four times and transferred to the mold, and then spread out again.

The filling soaked the dough. Often this happens with baskets. If a cream or filling is used for them, which does not need to be baked anymore, the finished baskets should be smeared with hot chocolate and put in the refrigerator. After that, you can fill them. If the pastries need to be returned to the oven to process the raw filling, the base of the dough should be smeared with beaten yolk and put in the oven for a couple of minutes. After that, fill them and bake for the required amount of time.

In general, the preparation of such a test can be fully mastered the first time. If it didn’t work out in the first one, it will work out in the second one. The advantage of such a blank is that it can be made for future use by dividing one portion of the dough into many small ones. One day of culinary experiments, and you can enjoy soft, melting pastries at any time.