For a tart or pie serving 6-8 or about 20 cookies or tartlets
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter, preferably unsalted
3 large eggs
4 cups Italian organic 00 soft wheat flour
a pinch of salt
grated zest of 1 lemon
Two methods: classic or crumb method
Classic method
Using a mixer, mix the sugar together with the butter (but don’t whip it). When it is well combined, add the eggs one at a time, mixing a little, then add the next egg.
Sift the organic flour, then add it along with the salt and grated lemon zest and continue to mix until it forms a smooth, compact and soft pastry dough. If making by hand, do not handle the dough too much or it could result in a tough texture.
Place the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to chill.
Roll out to the desired thickness, to make pies, tarts, cookies, tartlets, anything your heat desires, crust-wise.
Crumb method
Sift the organic flour, then place it on a work surface in a mound. In the center, make a well, and into this well add the butter. Start working it with your fingertips until it forms a shaggy mixture, then add the salt, sugar, eggs, grated lemon zest and knead quickly, without letting the dough warm up. The pastry should be crumbly.
Put the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before rolling out.
Useful tip: Whichever method you choose, once the resting time has elapsed, take the short crust pastry and knead it for a minute with your hands or in a stand mixer before your then roll it out with a rolling pin on a pastry board/work surface.
Short crust pastry is one of the basic and most versatile doughs in traditional pastry-making. With a good short crust recipe, a thousand delicious pastries can be yours: perhaps even more! You can even use it for cookies.
Its exact origin is unknown, but European artisans were already making it in the year 1000 AD, using cane sugar imported from the Middle East.
The French cook Guillaume Tirel was the first to describe how to make a sweet short crust in his manuscript Le Viandier.
Later, a Bartolomeo Scappi, a Master of the art of cooking in Renaissance Italy, included it in a chapter of his monumental cookbook, Opera dell’arte del cucinare. This cookbook is still considered today one of the most accurate portraits of Italian Renaissance culinary culture.
