Shortbread Crust Recipes

Steps:

• Mix all ingredients together until crumbly.
• Press into bottom and sides of 9 inch pie plate, Brush with egg yolk.
• Bake in 350°F (180°C) oven about 15 minutes until lightly browned.
• Cool and fill.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• In a large bowl, cream butter and confectioners' sugar until light and fluffy. Stir together flour and baking powder; blend into butter mixture. Pat into a 9 inch pie plate.
• Bake in preheated oven for 12 to 15 minutes, or until edges are lightly browned.

Steps:

• Blend ingredients to make a soft dough.
• Pat into a 9 or 10 inch tart or pie pan.
• Prick crust well with fork.
• Bake in 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes.

Steps:

• In a bowl, combine the butter and sugar and blend to make a paste.
• Add the yolk and blend thoroughly. Add the flour and using your fingers, blend to make a crumbly dough, being careful not to overwork.
• Pat firmly into a 9-inch pie pan and let rest in the refrigerator at least 2 hours or overnight.
• Remove from the refrigerator and prick the bottom of the crust with the tines of a fork. Place a sheet of parchment or foil in the pie tin and fill with pie weights or dried beans.
• Bake the crust in a pre-heated 400ºF. oven for 10 minutes. Remove the pie weights and foil and bake for another 5 minutes or until light golden brown.

Steps:

• Position an oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Butter a 9-by-12-1/2-inch jelly roll pan and line it with parchment, then butter the paper.
• Whisk together the flour, cornstarch and salt in a bowl. Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, 5 to 7 minutes. Slowly add the flour mixture and beat on low until the dough is just combined; do not overwork.
• Transfer the dough to the prepared pan, spreading it out as evenly as possible with a spatula. Cover with plastic wrap, then use your hands to press and flatten the dough into a smooth even layer. Remove the plastic and cut the dough with a sharp knife into approximately 1-by-3-inch bars. Use a fork to prick a decorative pattern into the tops.
• Bake, rotating the pan from front to back halfway through, until golden, 60 to 70 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes in the pan, then re-cut the bars along the previous cuts. Carefully lift the bars off the parchment with a small spatula and transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely. Store the cookies in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Steps:

• PREP------.
• As with all baking, have all your ingredients at a cool room temperature (65°F).
• Get a couple quarts of water boiling on the stove.
• Arrange racks in your oven so there's one on the lowest and one in the middle. If you do not have a center position then go mid-lower.
• Have a clean 10x14x2-inch (give or take) roasting pan ready.
• Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).
• Grease 10 inch springform pan.
• CRUST-------.
• Gently combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/3 cup sugar, 1 egg and 1/2 cup butter in a medium bowl.
• Spread to the edges of the pan.
• Prick all over with a fork, then bake 10-15 minutes at 400°F until lightly browned. Allow to cool on a rack.
• FILLING------.
• Increase oven temperature to 475°F.
• Turn oven light off (trust me on this one), place roasting pan on bottom rack and fill with boiling water.
• In a large bowl (I use my stand mixer), very gently beat cream cheese until smooth. I use the slowest setting for 5 minutes.
• Scrape down sides of bowl.
• Gradually add the salt, 1 3/4 cups sugar and 3 tablespoons flour -- continue to beat SLOWLY until well combined, scrape down sides of bowl.
• In a small bowl gently beat the vanilla, 5 eggs and the 2 yolks, gradually add eggs to the cream cheese mixture.
• Continue to stir until combined and smooth, stop mixer occasionally and scrape down sides.
• VERY IMPORTANT! Stop mixer, remove bowl and give it a good scraping (some of the cream cheese will stick to the sides and bottom of the bowl), replace bowl on mixer and stir until all lumps are gone.
• Add cream and mix only enough to blend.
• Gently pour filling over crust, run a thin knife around the filling in a S pattern to remove any trapped air bubbles. Let it sit on the counter for 5 minutes then do it again.
• Bake for 10 minutes at 475°F.
• Reduce temperature to 200°F and continue to bake for one hour.
• Turn oven off, but leave cake in for another hour.
• DON'T TOUCH THAT OVEN DOOR! You've created a nice, humid environment that will help prevent cracks and produce a perfect, professional, NY style cheese cake assuming you didn't mess with it by changing the atmospheric conditions.
• It may appear a little jiggly in the center and will have a golden appearance around the edges.
• Allow to cool on a rack for several hours, release the latch slightly on the side of the pan after 20 minutes, rotate sides to be sure the cake is free (but don't take it off yet), you can remove the sides after an hour (or so) if you want to admire your work, but replace it quickly or the cake may fall.
• After it's cool, wrap completely with plastic wrap, there should be a layer stuck to the top of the cake.
• Chill overnight in the refrigerator (Yes, this is required).
• The cake will stay at peak flavor for several days so long as you keep it wrapped and cold.
• What can go wrong?.
• If the cake cracks you either had your ingredients too cold, mixed the filling too vigorously, opened the oven door while the cake was cooking or didn't have a pan of water in the oven.
• If it does crack, don't despair -- just cover with a dark fruit or a layer of cookie crumbs.
• Toppings------.
• Nothing (my favorite).
• OR, boil a bag of frozen berries with a 1/4 cup of sugar until the liquid coats the back of a spoon, thicken with a table spoon of cornstarch mixed into a 1/4 cup of cold water -- Pour in slowly while maintaining the boil and stirring constantly.
• Adjust thickness by adding liquid or more cornstarch.
• Flavor with liqueur, fruit juice or extract.
• Blueberries or raspberries with Chambord is awesome, cherries work well with Frangelico or Amaretto. If you do use an alcoholic beverage, be sure to boil off alcohol. Cool fruit sauce in a mason jar and refrigerate. Keeps longer than the cheese cake!
• I've served it with caramel sauce and, buttered/sliced/baked apples .
• A light milk chocolate sauce, a sprinkle of chopped pecans and dollop of whipped cream will produce a nice turtle cake.

Steps:

• Set oven to 350 degrees, set oven rack to second-lowest position.
• Butter a 13 x 9-inch baking pan.
• For the crust: In a processor blend all ingredients until mixture begins to form small clumps.
• Sprinkle the mixture into prepared baking pan.
• Lightly press the mixture down with a spatula (do not pat down too much).
• Bake in the second-lowest oven rack for 20 minutes until golden.
• Meanwhile prepare the filling/topping: In a heavy saucepan melt butter and stir in brown sugar, honey and whipping cream; simmer mixture for about 1 minute, stirring occasionally.
• Stir in chopped pecans.
• Pour the pecan mixture over hot shortbread crust and spread evenly in the pan.
• Bake on the second-lowest oven rack for about 20-22 minutes.
• Cool completely in the pan.
• *NOTE* these bars will cut better if refrigerated.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch pan, making sure you grease the sides of the pan very well.
• In a medium bowl, stir together 2 cups flour and confectioners' sugar until well-blended. (If the confectioner's sugar is lumpy, sift or push it through a strainer to get the lumps out.).
• Blend in the melted butter. Press into the bottom of the prepared pan.
• Bake this (shortbread crust) in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until golden.
• In a large bowl, beat eggs until light.
• In a separate bowl, mix together the white sugar, baking powder and 1/4 cup of flour so there will be no flour lumps. Stir the sugar mixture into the eggs.
• Finally, stir in the lemon juice. Pour over the prepared crust and return to the oven.
• Bake for an additional 30 minutes or until bars are set. Allow to cool completely before cutting into bars.

Steps:

• In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy with electric mixer (about 3 minutes).
• Add extract; mix thoroughly (1 minute).
• Incorporate flour little at a time; mixing until thoroughly combined.
• Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour.
• Turn dough out on a lightly floured board and roll out to 1/3" thickness.
• Line a tart pan (10" x 1" high with removable bottom) with the pastry dough.
• Prick dough and place in a preheated oven at 350 degrees.
• Bake for 15- 20 minutes or until golden brown.
• Remove from oven; cool and fill with pastry cream top with fresh fruit (kiwi, banana, strawberry, green seedless grapes, blueberries).