Week 7: Basic Shortbread Tart Dough, Pâte Sablée

 Week 7: Flour Power

This week I want to continue to focus on the texture of our reference, Split M, but instead focus on the flour type. Lower gluten flour like cake flour should give a more tender shell. Additionally, many recipes for Pâte Sablée substitute some of the flour for almond flour claiming that it adds additional tenderness. The recipes from the previous weeks that used almond flour never used more than ~5% the total recipe weight, and from our tests last week, we know we can use down to 130 g of flour with no effect, so let's substitute 20 g of flour for almond flour (~6%). Our splits are then:

Both Splits M and R melted in the mouth, but Split R was slightly more tender to bite into as expected from its lower gluten content. Split S was even more tender to bite into than Split R, but it didn't melt in the mouth as well as Split R and instead had a gloopy mouthfeel. 

The substitution of the almond flour for some of the flour in Split T did yield a more tender shell than Split M, but it also changed the texture to be a bit more crumbly, which made it feel a bit dryer in the mouth. Split T was slightly less tender than Split R.

Overall, Split R is tender to bite into and gives a nice, melt in your mouth consistency, making it our winning recipe!