Dough is a semi-finished product used in pasta, confectionery, bakery industries, as well as when baking various flour products at home. It's easy to make the dough yourself, but it doesn't always turn out exactly what you need, for example, too dense or too sticky. So how do you make the perfect dough for a particular baked item?
How to make the dough
Flour is the main ingredient in the dough. To prepare it, wheat flour is most often used. For
for preparing dough for baking, you need to take premium flour. It is important that it is not infected with beetle larvae and does not have foreign odors. Sifting flour is an obligatory procedure before kneading the dough. Thanks to it, the product will be cleansed of accidental debris, and will also be saturated with oxygen. Both will have a positive effect on the quality of baked goods. Flour, which contains little gluten, is suitable for fancy dough. For puff pastry, bread and strudel doughs, it is best to use durum wheat flour to make them.
Improving the taste of future baking is due to the addition of granulated sugar to the dough. In addition, it affects the activity of the fermenting microflora of yeast dough. When adding sugar to the dough, you need to strictly observe the proportions of the recipe, because it is precisely because of the excess of this ingredient that it becomes heavy and dense.
There are a lot of recipes for making dough. Some of them require the addition of dairy products such as sour cream, cottage cheese, kefir and others. This is done to create lactic acid fermentation and improve the friability of the semi-finished product.
Fats are responsible for the plasticity of the dough - sunflower oil or animal fats. When kneading dough, the most important thing is not to overdo it with their quantity. An excess of fats, like granulated sugar, will affect not only the quality, but also the taste of baked goods. Baking made from dough that has lost its friability becomes dry.
Eggs should be added to the dough in order to improve the taste and color qualities of the confection. Baked goods containing this ingredient in the dough are tender and crumbly. For the preparation of a semi-finished product, it is recommended to use necessarily fresh, but not very large eggs.
To make yeast dough, you can use both dry and pressed yeast. Before you start kneading the dough, you need to make a dough. It is made by adding warm milk or water to the yeast. Please note that when using hot liquid, yeast cells will die, cold - the dough will rise very slowly.
To loosen the dough when kneading, add soda slaked with vinegar to it. However, the use of baking soda is not always appropriate, as it can spoil the taste of baked goods. You can replace it with a special commercial baking powder. It is introduced into the dough in the following proportions - 10 grams of dry mixture per 400 grams of flour.
Dough recipes
- whole eggs - 2 pcs;
- butter - 300 g;
- sugar - 1 glass;
- egg yolk - 1 pc;
- salt.
Grind the cooled butter into cubes and add to the dry mixture of sifted flour and salt. Using a knife, chop the resulting mass so that crumbs are formed. Then add cold chicken eggs and egg yolk to the future shortbread dough, one at a time. Mix everything quickly until smooth. Knead the dough with your hands, transfer to a cup and cover with plastic wrap. Send to refrigerator for 30-60 minutes.
- flour - 2 glasses and 3 tablespoons;
- vegetable oil - 85 ml;
- salt - 0.5 teaspoon;
- dry yeast without additives - 1 tablespoon;
- granulated sugar - 2 tablespoons;
- water or milk - 300 ml.
Dry yeast, granulated sugar, warm water or milk and 3 tablespoons of flour are placed in one bowl. Mix everything thoroughly and put in a warm place for a quarter of an hour. After the specified interval has elapsed, add salt and vegetable oil to a bowl with a mass. Then add the sifted flour there as you knead. Knead the pie dough until it stops sticking out of your hands. Leave it to rise for another 15 minutes.
- flour - 1 kg;
- eggs - 2 pcs;
- butter - 800 g;
- salt - 1 teaspoon;
- vinegar 5-7% - 2 tablespoons;
- ice water - 350 ml.
Break chicken eggs into a measuring cup. Add salt and vinegar there. Introduce ice water into the mixed mass - you should get about 500 milliliters of liquid. Put it in the refrigerator. Then pour the sifted wheat flour onto the table. From time to time, dip butter or margarine in it and grate it on a coarse grater. Stir the flour and butter mixture. Make a slide out of it with a depression and pour in the chilled liquid. Do not mix puff pastry. It must be lifted from different sides and folded in layers. After giving the dough the shape of a rectangle, send it to the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours, preferably 10-12 hours.
- flour - 700 g;
- water - 260 ml;
- eggs - 1, 5 pieces;
- salt - 1, 5 teaspoon.
Warm up the water slightly. Its temperature should be about 35 degrees. Then mix it with flour, salt, eggs and stir until smooth. Let the dough stand for 40 minutes. The dough for dumplings is made in exactly the same way, only additional ingredients are added to it, namely: a tablespoon of granulated sugar and 245 milliliters of milk.
Knowledge of technology, how to make dough, opens up new opportunities for housewives. They can easily make any pastry, be it homemade cakes or puff pastry cookies.
