Shortbread Crust

Most of the Cheesecakes I make start with a crust. I do have a variety of crusts (that goes well with having a variety of cheesecakes, don't you think?). This time let's work on a shortbread crust.

Preheat oven to 400F

In a small mixing bowl, combine:
1+1/4 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar

Using a pastry blender or food processor, cut in to make a crumbly meal:
6 Tablespoons cold butter

Still with the pastry blender or food processor, cut in till thoroughly mixed:
1 large egg yolk

If mixture is still to dry, I will then add a little milk, as much as a tablespoon.

Evenly press about one third of the mixture into the bottom of the pan that you will be using for your cheesecake. Place the remaining two thirds in the fridge in an airtight container (you will use it later for the sides).

Bake for about 13 to 14 minutes, just until it is starting to get a very light golden color, usually just on some of the edges.

While this is baking you can get started on mixing the filling, or the baked crust can be held as long as the next day if you are going to make the cake a little later.

When the filling is ready, carefully press the remaining crust mixture around the inside, sidewalls of the pan. Take care to not allow extra thickness at the bottom of the sides, where it joins together with the bottom crust. Fill and bake. The side crust will get adequately baked with the rest of the cake, but it will not be the same as the bottom crust, and that is okay.

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Some notes:
Always in cooking, as with most things, if you skimp on cheaper, inferior ingredients, you will end up with a cheaper, inferior product. Use the best ingredients! For example, when I say "Use butter," I mean to use a good quality, fresh butter. Not margarine, or some other substitute, or blend. Figure out which of the butters you can find is of the best quality, and fresh. Quiet often when others cover specifics of ingredients they will say that you should only ever use unsalted butter, because salt is only added to help it last longer, so the unsalted will be fresher. I suggest that you can, with effort, learn to tell which butter you want, salt or no salt. (By the way, if you use unsalted butter in the above crust, I would recommend about 1/8 teaspoon of a salt mixed with the flour and sugar.) This is just a start of what I may offer about butter, and it is obviously just one, rather small, ingredient. Ingredients will get a lot more coverage, but first I want to give you some reason to care about ingredients (reason = recipes to use them in).

When I started out making these treats, I had a typical pastry blender that I used for mixing the crust. I wore that thing out in nothing flat. Okay, it did hold up for a while, but if you use one of those very much they will require replacing. I replaced it with a bigger, hefty, stainless steel model. It has held up much better, still works great. But then when I got producing cheesecakes in greater numbers, such that the time it takes to mix a crust by hand makes a difference, then I got a food processor specifically for that purpose. It does simplify and speed up the process. If you are going to purchase one for this reason, consider the size (go bigger). Again, equipment like ingredients, will receive much more coverage down the road.

When pressing crust mixture into the pan, it should press and stick together. If it wont, it may be a bit to dry. But do not allow to much moisture either.

Depending on pan variety, you may choose to place the pan on a sheet of aluminum foil, and fold it up around the sides of the pan. As the crust bakes, it may leak some melted butter out through the cracks or seams of the pan. This would indicate that you have too much butter in the mixture, and perhaps you would want to decrease the butter quantity by a tablespoon or so next time.

Good luck with this. If you are ready to give it a try, let me know how it goes. The next entry here will be a filling to put in this crust to make a New York style cheesecake.