Butter Crunch Cookies
Aperçu
Butter, icing sugar, cornflour and cake flour, chilled and baked slowly into a crisp, short cookie. No country is named and none applies: this is a shortbread-type biscuit of the kind made everywhere. The cornflour is what does the work, and it is worth understanding. Cornflour has no gluten and no protein structure, so replacing over half the flour with it produces a cookie with almost no chew at all, it crumbles and dissolves rather than snapping. That is the crunch of the name, and it is closer to a Scottish shortbread or a Chinese cornflour cookie than to a chewy butter biscuit. Two details in the method matter. The dough is refrigerated for thirty minutes before shaping, which firms the butter so the cookies hold their form rather than spreading. And they are baked at a low temperature for a long time, around forty to forty-five minutes in a cool oven, which dries them out rather than browning them. That length at that heat is what produces the texture, and it also means they should be watched, since a cookie this pale gives little visual warning before it colours.
Ingrédients
Les mentions alimentaires sont fournies par les contributeurs à titre indicatif. Elles ne sont pas vérifiées par AFN et dépendent des produits que vous achetez. En cas d’allergie grave, vérifiez vous-même chaque ingrédient. Cuisine, allergies et votre propre jugement
Préparation
- 1
Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and whisk until smooth and fluffy.
- 2
Add the cornflour, cake flour and salt to the same bowl and mix everything to combine.
- 3
Cover with foil or wrap and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
- 4
After 30 minutes, scoop and weigh about 20 g for each cookie, or more if you want them larger.
- 5
Roll each with your hands to smooth it, place on a lined tray and press down with a fork.
- 6
Bake at 170°C for 40 to 45 minutes, turning them over partway through.
Notes de l’Africook
Notes personnelles de B-NAZZIES KITCHEN EXPERIENCE- Chill the dough the full 30 minutes. Warm butter means the cookies spread and lose their shape.
- Weigh them rather than eyeing them. Twenty grams each gives even cookies that bake in the same time.
- Watch them near the end. They stay pale for most of the bake and then colour quickly, and a browned butter crunch cookie is a different thing.
- The high proportion of cornflour is deliberate and is what gives the crumbly texture. Swapping it for ordinary flour makes a chewy biscuit instead.
- They firm up considerably as they cool, so judge them out of the oven by colour rather than by feel.
- Store airtight. They soften within a day in humid air.
Questions fréquentes
Why so much cornflour?
Because cornflour has no gluten and no protein structure, so it gives a cookie that crumbles and dissolves rather than chewing. Replacing more than half the flour with it is what produces the crunch of the name. Using all wheat flour instead makes a perfectly good biscuit, but a chewy one.
Why bake them for so long at a low temperature?
To dry them out rather than brown them. Forty to forty-five minutes at 170°C is a long bake for a small cookie, and that is deliberate: the low slow heat drives off moisture and sets the crumbly texture without colouring the surface.
What is cake flour and can I substitute it?
Cake flour is a low-protein wheat flour that gives a tenderer crumb than plain flour. If you have none, replace each cup of cake flour with a cup of plain flour minus two tablespoons, plus two tablespoons of cornflour. Given how much cornflour this recipe already has, plain flour alone works acceptably.
How long do they keep?
About a week in an airtight container, though they are best in the first few days. Humidity is the enemy: they soften noticeably in damp air. If they lose their crispness, a few minutes in a low oven restores it.
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