Sables

Sables Rice tender Short bread cookies are popular in France as Chocolate chip cookies in America.cookie is both Crumble and melt in your mouth tender and it has any time rightness that makes it as perfect with a tall glass of milk , a bowl of ice-cream or a basket of berries as it is on petits fours trays in France’s grandest restaurants.

dough for sables is shaped into logs and then sprinkled with sugar before it is sliced and baked .During the year I coat the logs with sparkly white decorated sugar . when the holidays come around I double the recipe and go mad with color , sprinkling some of the logs with brilliant red sugar , some with green and some of the m with rain bow mix . trimmed in color and packed in festive tins , these make terrific  Christmas Cookies

if your new to Sables please these pointers :

Pointers :These shortbreads are made of butter, sugar  either granulated or confectioner or a combination of both and flour although some recipes have an egg or two or may be just yolks its not the eggs that define cookies it’s the other ingredients most importantly how you handle them .

Here’s all you need to know to get perfectly crumbly shortbread or sables every time

Use fresh butter that is soft but not at all greasy , if your butter is sitting in an oily puddle its gone too soft and your sables wont have their characteristic sandiness

Don’t beat the butter ( or the butter , sugar and eggs ) so enthusiastically that mixture is light and fluffy . you don’t want to beat air into the dough , because it would;d cause the cookies to puff as they bake in the oven and sink as they cool on the counter.

be soft and gently when you blend in the flour this is the make or break step in the process

with the word sandy singing in your head add the flour all at once and mix it only until it disappears into the dough .to guard against over mixing you can mix in the rest of the flour by hand .shape the dough as the recipe directs and then make sure to give it a good , long chill it will improve the flavor of the cookies and help them keep their shape under the ovens heat .Try to refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours but know that longer is better.cool the cookies completely before you serve them . as seductive as the smell of warm butter , sugar and flour is the cookies taste better when they reach room temperature.

adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

makes about 25-30 cookies

 

2 stick of unsalted butter 8 oz.

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup confection sugar sifted

1/2 Tsp. salt preferably fine sea salt

2 large egg yolks at room temperature

2 cups all purpose flour

decorating coarse sugar

Working with a stand mixer with paddle attachment or with hand mixer in a large bowl beat butter at medium speed until smooth and very creamy .add the sugars and slat and beat until very blended about 1 minute.the mixture should be smooth and velvety , not fluffy and airy .reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in egg yolks again beating until mixture is homogenous.turn off the mixer .pour in the flour pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times , second or two each time . take a peek if there is still lot of flour on the surface of the dough , pulse a couple more times continuing at low speed mix for 30 seconds and more just until flour disappear into the dough and the dough looks uniformly moist .if most of the flour is incorporated but you have still some in the bottom of the bowl use a rubber spatula to work the rest of the flour into the dough . the dough will not clean the sides of the ball nor will come together into a ball and it shouldn’t .you want to work the dough as little as possible when you are aiming for is a soft moist clumpy rather than smooth dough pinch it and will feel like a Play–Doh.

scrape the dough out onto a smooth surface gather it into a ball and divide into half .shape each piece into  smooth log and wrap it in a plastic wrap and use plastic wrap to help to form  a  log .wrap the longs well and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours preferably longer

the dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months .

Getting  ready to bake: center a rack in the oven preheat the oven to 350F line 2 baking sheets with parchment or silicon mats

remove a log  of dough from refrigerator un wrap it and place it on apiece of wax paper or parchment paper whisk the egg yolk until its smooth and brush some of the yolk all over the sides of the dough this is  the glue then sprinkle the entire surface of the log with decorating sugar

trim the ends of the roll if they ragged and slice the log into 1/3 inch thick cookies .you can make these as thick as 1/2 inch or as thin as but no thinner than 1/4 inch place the rounds on baking sheets leaving an inch of space between them

bake one sheet at a time for 17-20 minutes. rotating the baking sheet at the mid way point , when properly baked cookies will be light brown on the bottom , lightly golden brown around the edges and pale on the top they may feel tender when you touch the top gently and that’s fine . remove from the oven and let the cookies rest a minute or two before carefully lifting them onto a rack with a wide metal spatula to cool to room temperature.repeat with the remaining log of dough , making sure the baking sheets are cool before you bake the second batch.

Enjoy!

   

   

I just left to chill them for a day ………. and then you can also plan to keep the dough for months together in the freezer and when you ready to bake cut them in slice and bake them ……