Sablé cookies are very famous in Brittany on the West Coast of France. They are very similar to shortbread, except they are made with egg yolks. They also have a characteristic sandy outside edge and they are very rich in butter. Sablés have a mild sweetness that is a perfect complement for sweet mousses or parfaits.
These cookies take me back in time to my childhood. I remember coming back from school and inhaling them with a huge glass of milk.
1. Info for Sable Cookies (French Buttery Shortbread)
- Cook Time: unavailable
- Total Time: unavailable
- Servings: 24
- Calories: unavailable
2. Ingredients for Sable Cookies (French Buttery Shortbread)
- 2 egg yolks, at room temperature
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp fleur de sel, finely ground
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 6 Tbs superfine sugar
- 17 Tbs unsalted butter, (2 sticks + 1 Tbs)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 drops almond extract
3. Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 410°F.
- In a mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks with 1/4 cup of sugar for about 4-5 minutes. You’ll get a pale yellow foam and the texture of the egg yolk will be slightly denser. Add the vanilla and almond extracts.
- In a bowl, combine the flour, finely ground fleur de sel and baking powder. Sift all the dry ingredients.
- Cream the butter (2 sticks + 1 Tablespoon) with superfine sugar (whisk using a standmixer to get as much air as possible in the butter). Add the egg mixture and the dry ingredients. Mix well.
- Place a silicon mat or a sheet of parchment paper on a baking tray. Spread the sandy cookie dough onto the silicon mat. Place another silicon mat on top of the dough like a sandwich. Even out the dough using a rolling pin to about a 1” thickness. Plastic wrap the tray and place it in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
- Remove the first layer of the silicon mat. Get several cookie cutters and cut the cookie dough. Much to my chagrin, I found that using irregular shaped cookie cutters were more difficult to unmold. So either bake cookie-cutter-less or bake with a simple shape cookie cutter like circles or squares.
- Bake the cookies for 10 minutes at 410°F.
- Remove from the oven and let them cool down completely to room temperature before taking them off the cookie cutters. They will harden and get firm as they cool down.
- Bon appétit!
- Stay tuned and check back tomorrow and see what I pair this sablé cookie with.
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