I’ve made spritz sablé cookies before. The most recent variation was one made of orange and dark chocolate. The girls felt like baking today and they really wanted to make a fresh batch of the sablé cookies. I was all for it but I wanted to teach them to be creative and come up with a new flavor combination.
There was a tall pitcher of my mint and cardamom-flavored Arnold Palmer on the counter. Sunny, the eldest, looked over at it, then back at me, and said "why not mint and cardamom-flavor spritz sablé?". – I thought it was a brilliant idea. If you browse through the recipes on the website, you’ll notice that I use cardamom in almost everything, from savory dishes, to drinks, to desserts. I knew it would make a perfect flavoring for the cookies.
I didn’t want to add mint extract directly to the cookie dough because I thought it would be to overpowering. Instead, I used Guittard pink-colored mint chocolate chips to make a ganache, which I dipped the cookies in, once they baked and cooled. These particular spritz cookies are thicker and chewier than the orange and dark chocolate version. They both taste great so it’s really a matter of personal preference. Try both and see which one you like!
1. Info for Cardamom Spritz Cookies dipped in Mint Chocolate
- Cook Time: unavailable
- Total Time: unavailable
- Servings: 48
- Calories: unavailable
2. Ingredients for Cardamom Spritz Cookies dipped in Mint Chocolate
- 20 cardamom pods
- 27 tablespoons unsalted butter, (3 sticks + 3 tablespoons)
- 1-3/4 cups powdered sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt (or regular salt), ground to a fine powder
- 2 egg whites
- 3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 8 ounces pink-colored mint chocolate chips
- 1-1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
3. Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 365°F.
- In a bowl, combine the flour and sea salt. In another bowl, place the powdered sugar. Sift all the dry ingredients, separately.
- For the cardamom powder: Remove all the pods from the shells. In a mortar and pestle, grind the cardamom seeds. Crush all the nits and gather the cardamom powder.
- For the spritz cookie: Cream the butter with the powdered sugar (whisk using the paddle attachment of a stand-mixer to get as much air as possible into the butter). Add the egg whites, the cardamom powder and the dry ingredients. Mix until a soft, pliable, sandy cookie dough is formed. Do NOT over-mix. Transfer the dough into a bowl. Plastic wrap it and chill it in the refrigerator for at least 15-20 minutes.
- Use a rounded decorating tip. Fill a pastry bag with the cookie dough. Pipe about 50 (4-inch) tight "snakes".
- Bake for about 10-11 minutes. The cookies should be firm but not too golden brown. Let the cookies cool completely on a cooling rack.
- For the mint ganache: Place a pot filled with hot water (at a gentle simmer), topped with a piece of cloth so the bowl does not move and place a stainless-steel bowl filled with the mint chocolate chips on top. Turn off the heat. Temperature of the water shouldn’t exceed 118°F (you can get a digital thermometer at IKEA for a reasonable price). Melt the chocolate chips with the vegetable shortening, butter and heavy cream. (See tips). Use immediately. If the chocolate hardens, place the chocolate back in the double boiler.
- Line a baking tray with a silicone mat or a sheet of parchment paper. Dip the tips of each cookie in melted chocolate. Shake the cookie a little to remove the excess chocolate and place onto the baking sheet. Repeat the same procedure for the rest of the spritz cookies, one at a time. Let the chocolate set and harden. Depending on the weather, chill the cookies in the refrigerator if needed so the chocolate sets completely.
- And, of course, enjoy with a glass of mint and cardamom-flavored Arnold Palmer!
