SC - Shortbread help, please

[Mark Schuldenfrei]

  But the shortbread turned out hard as a rock.  Even my kid won't eat it, and 
  she was raised in the SCA, she'll try anything.  (She did try it, but with a 
  couple of teeth missing -- she's seven -- didn't have the confidence to bite 
  hard enough to snap a piece off.)

Hmmm.

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.

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.

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

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.

	Tibor
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