Final Notes for the Old-Fashioned Sweet Shortcrust Pastry with Lard
➡️ When it comes to baking homemade cakes, each housewife has a favorite pastry recipe. There are various shortcrust pastry recipes for different types of cakes. Almost everyone knows what is a leavened dough and that it’s used for homemade cake recipes.
➡️ In addition to leavened dough, there are available unleavened dough recipes. These are used for other traditional homemade cake recipes. The shortcrust pastry recipe shared on this page is a shortcrust pastry without leavening. The difference between the leavened dough and the unleavened dough is mainly that the leavened dough grows in volume in a raw state, before making the cake itself, while the unleavened dough is used as soon as it’s ready.
➡️ There are quite a few people who ask me why both yeast and baking powder is used in this recipe for this shortcrust pastry with lard if it’s not a leavened dough. To clarify this confusion, the fact that the dough is not allowed to leaven before making the cake does not mean that it will not grow at all, but that the growth takes place during baking, and to grow, the cake needs yeast or baking powder.
➡️ Pastry with lard is a very old recipe and is traditionally prepared with pork lard. This cannot be replaced with butter, as some might believe, because a butter dough needs leavening to be soft. Before those who think that lard is bad for health to make critical observations, I inform you that lard is, in fact, very healthy and even vital to the human body. In addition, there are a lot of articles on the Internet that prove the beneficial effects of pork lard!
➡️ If you are wondering why both yeast and baking powder is used in the recipe, find out that my grandmother accidentally discovered that by using this technique the pastry dough will be softer and bakes better. Also, if you’re wondering why I use cold milk instead of lukewarm milk, the reason is that this lard dough is not a leavened dough type, so it’s not necessary to use warmed milk.
➡️ What is this sweet shortcrust pastry with lard used for? Unleavened dough fits very well with the preparation of jam crescent cookies or crescent cookies with other fillings such as Turkish delight or walnut spread. Other well-known types of homemade cakes that can be made with this shortcrust pastry recipe are traditional apple pie or cheese pie. From the sweet shortcrust pastry with lard, you can also make beigli with poppyseed or walnut filling and many different types of cookies.
➡️ Enjoy making old-fashioned sweet shortcrust pastry with lard from scratch! For additional info, read more about different shortcrust pastry recipe types here.
