SC - Re: pickles

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Mark Schuldenfrei wrote:

> I'll jump back to my original point. I've tried to make cookies by mixing
> the dough by hand, and I've done it by mixing the dough in a food processor.
> The food processor cookies always came out tough as nails, or hard as rocks.
> 
> I surmise (but will rely on better bakers than I) that it was because the
> dough became too homogenous.  I think it's the little bits of butter that
> melt and absorb into the surrounding flour that make the cookies crumbly,
> and its the tiny globs of flour separated from others by butter that
> prevent gluten formation.

As Tibor is fond of saying, Ayuh. Thass why they call it shortening.
Gluten is a polymer, a compound protein, which forms from two simpler
proteins when mixed and kneaded with water. The kneading produces an
effect similar to pulling up a zipper, and the more you knead (up to a
point) the longer the strands that form, and the tougher the dough. I
doubt that the medieval and renaissance cooks who identifed the
phenomenon of "shortening" a wheat flour dough knew any of this
chemistry stuff. More likely they saw that leavened doughs with fat in
them did not rise as high as those without, and correctly identified the
fat as the culprit that made the dough "short". I'm winging it here, can
you all tell? ;  )
> 
> I've also seen that you have to make and bake the shortbread dough, and not
> let it sit too long.  This may also be the gluten issue.

Interesting. Shortbread is basically a pastry, and it's the only one
I'll have heard of that shouldn't sit a bit, if what you say is true. I
always assumed that, as with shortcrust pie pastry, twenty minutes or
half an hour in the fridge (suitably wrapped--the dough, not the fridge)
will allow the gluten strands to begin to break down again, which
tenderizes the dough. Do we have direct evidence to the contrary? I'm
easy, here.

Another possibility, and probably the simplest, is to be sure you use
the right amount of butter for the other ingredients. Other options
include substituting non-glutinous flours for some part (up to around
15%) of the total wheat flour. Rice flour, cornstarch, etc. Barley
flour, if you can get it, is excellent for this.

> 
> I'm not much of a pastry guy: I hope others can enlighten.

Me, neither. But I was a pastry chef (on top of my existing job,
dammit!) for six months until they got around to replacing the pastry
chef they fired. Pastry and I have a...complex...relationship.
 
> When I am in production mode for large batches of shortbread, I have two
> pans cooling, two pans baking, and two pans ready for new dough: and I make
> each batch of dough just before baking.  It get's pretty hectic, but it's
> fun.

Double Ayuh. I suspect the bottom line here is that most shortbread
recipes weren't designed to be made with a food processor, and if you
choose to do so, you need to compensate in some way, if only by making
absolutely sure you use the right proportions of flour, butter, and
sugar, or using a trick or two to reduce the effect of gluten
development.

For what it's worth, at least some of the "hard shortbread" problems can
be traced to overbaking, even if it doesn't appear to be burnt.

Adamantius  
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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