Hjemmelavede Mordejs-Tarteletskaller

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Twelve small fluted tartelet tins, about 8cm across
• •Rolling pin
• •Wide mixing bowl
• •Round cutter or small bowl, about 10cm across
• •Baking sheet
• •Wire cooling rack

Instructions

1. 1

   Cube the butter cold

   Take the butter from the fridge and cut it straight into small cubes, about a centimetre across. Put the cubes back in the fridge while you measure the flour. Mordej lives or dies on the temperature of its butter. Warm butter melts into the flour and gives you something dense and bready. Cold butter stays in tiny pockets that steam in the oven and create the layers that shatter when you bite through. Cold is not a suggestion. It is the dish.

   If your kitchen is warm, freeze the cubed butter for ten minutes before you start. You want it firm enough to crack between your fingers, not soft enough to smear.
2. 2

   Rub butter into flour

   Tip the flour, sugar, and salt into a wide mixing bowl. Add the cold butter cubes and toss them through the flour so each one is coated. Now rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips, lifting the mixture and letting it fall back into the bowl as you work. Stop when the texture looks like coarse breadcrumbs with some larger flecks of butter still visible. Those flecks are good. Those are where the flakiness comes from.

3. 3

   Bring the dough together

   Whisk the egg yolk into three tablespoons of ice water. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and pour in the liquid. Use a table knife to cut and fold the dough together until it begins to clump. If it still looks dry and won't come together, add the fourth tablespoon of water. Press the dough into a rough disc with your hands. Do not knead it. Kneading develops gluten, and gluten is what you want in bread, not in mordej. The dough should look slightly rough and marbled with butter, not smooth.

4. 4

   Rest in the fridge

   Wrap the disc tightly in baking paper or a beeswax wrap and put it in the fridge for at least thirty minutes. This is the step nobody wants to do and the step that makes the difference. The flour needs time to hydrate evenly, and the butter needs to firm back up after the warmth of your hands. Skip this and the dough will tear when you roll it and shrink in the tins.

5. 5

   Grease the tins

   While the dough rests, brush twelve small fluted tartelet tins with soft butter, getting into every flute and up the sides. Set them on a baking sheet so you can move them as a group. Heat the oven to 200C.

6. 6

   Roll out the dough

   Lightly flour your counter and your rolling pin. Take the dough from the fridge and roll it out to about three millimetres thick. Work from the centre outwards, turning the dough a quarter turn between rolls so it stays even. If it cracks at the edges, the dough is still too cold. Wait two minutes and try again. If it sticks, dust with a little more flour, but be sparing. Too much flour now and the shells will taste dusty later.

7. 7

   Line the tins

   Cut circles of dough about two centimetres wider than your tins. Lift each circle and lay it gently into a tin, pressing it carefully into the base and up the fluted sides. Don't stretch the dough. Stretched dough shrinks back when it bakes and you'll end up with shallow shells. Run your rolling pin across the top of each tin to trim the excess cleanly. Prick the bases all over with a fork.

   Gather any scraps, press them gently together, and rest them in the fridge for ten minutes before rolling again. You can usually get one or two extra shells from the trimmings.
8. 8

   Blind bake

   Cut small squares of baking paper and press one into each shell. Fill with dried beans or baking weights, right up to the top edge. The weights hold the dough against the sides while the butter melts and the structure sets. Bake for twelve minutes, until the edges are starting to take on color but the bases are still pale.

9. 9

   Finish baking

   Take the tray out of the oven and lift the paper and beans out of each shell. The dough should look set and dry on the surface. Return the shells to the oven for another eight to ten minutes, until the bases and sides are deep golden and smell of toasted butter. This is the moment they go from pastry to tarteletskaller. You'll know when it's right because the smell changes. Nutty, biscuity, warm.

10. 10

    Cool and unmould

    Let the shells cool in their tins for five minutes. They are fragile when they come out of the oven and need that time to firm up. Then turn each tin upside down and tap gently. The shell should drop into your hand. Cool completely on a wire rack before filling or storing. Cold shells, hot filling. That's the rule, and it's what keeps the bottoms from going soft.

Chef Tips

• •The single biggest mistake with mordej is warm butter. If your kitchen is warm or your hands run hot, work fast and put the dough back in the fridge whenever it starts to feel soft. Cold butter is not optional. It is the technique.
• •Real butter only. Margarine and butter blends will not give you the flavor or the flake. This is a recipe with very few ingredients, so each one has to earn its place.
• •Save the egg white in a small jar in the fridge. You can brush a thin layer onto the inside of the baked shells and return them to the oven for two minutes. The egg white seals the pastry and keeps a hot, wet filling from making the bottoms soggy. This is an old trick from the Danish home kitchens of the 1940s and it still works.
• •The classic filling is høns i asparges, but the shells are a vessel and they will hold whatever you give them. Creamed mushrooms with thyme, smoked salmon with dill cream, prawns in a light curry sauce. The season decides.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be made up to two days ahead. Keep it wrapped in the fridge and let it sit on the counter for ten minutes before rolling, just enough to take the chill off without losing the firmness.
• •The dough also freezes well for up to three months. Defrost overnight in the fridge before using.
• •Baked and cooled shells keep for a week in an airtight tin at room temperature. To refresh them on the day of serving, warm them in a 160C oven for five minutes. They come back crisp and smelling of fresh butter.
• •For longer storage, freeze the baked shells in a rigid container with parchment between the layers. They keep for two months and refresh straight from frozen in a hot oven for eight minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 35g)