Sable in French means “sandy” — these are a classic French cookie, made out of crumbly chocolate shortbread. To keep them nice and sandy, be extra careful not to overmix the dough. The hint of salt brightens the flavor and underlines the chocolate. For a special holiday treat, sandwich two of these together with a small scoop of peppermint ice cream.
| Level: | Intermediate |
| Total: | 1 hr 52 min |
| Prep: | 20 min |
| Inactive: | 1 hr 20 min |
| Cook: | 12 min |
| Yield: | about 3 dozen cookies |
Ingredients
- 3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, frozen for 10 minutes
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 5 1/4 ounces (11 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 large egg yolk
Instructions
- Grate the chilled chocolate with a fine grater or rasp and set aside.
- Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and sea salt.
- Beat the butter and sugar in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until just combined. Mix in the yolk. Add the dry ingredients to the butter and beat lightly together until just combined but still crumbly. Fold in grated chocolate with a spatula. Bring the dough together by lightly squeezing in your hands; but don’t knead or overwork, as the secret to these cookies is their delicate, sandy texture.
- Divide the dough in half. Lay half the dough on a long sheet of waxed paper and shape into a log along the width of the waxed paper, leaving some space at each end. Pull the paper over the top of the log. Grip the edge of the top piece of paper, and use a straight, firm edge, like a ruler or the edge of a pan, to press gently against the edge of the dough where the papers come together to create a solid, firm round log. Repeat with remaining dough and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. (To keep logs round store inside an empty paper towel roll.)
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Slice logs into 1/2-inch thick rounds with a sharp, thin knife. Divide rounds onto the prepared sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them, and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
- Bake until cookies smell fragrant with a full cocoa aroma and set on the outside, about 12 to 14 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on the pans, about 5 minutes.
- Transfer cookies to a rack to cool completely. Serve.
- Busy baker’s tips: Dough can be made and frozen for up to 2 weeks. Store baked cookies in an airtight container for up to 5 days. Baked cookies can be wrapped in plastic wrap, then aluminum foil and frozen for up to 2 weeks.
- Cook’s note: For super uniform cookies, place each sliced disk of dough in a muffin tin and bake. The cookies will be chewier, less sandy this way.
- Copyright 2007 Television Food Network, G.P. All rights reserved
Nutrition Facts
| Serving Size | 1 of 36 servings |
| Calories | 82 |
| Total Fat | 4 g |
| Saturated Fat | 3 g |
| Carbohydrates | 11 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Sugar | 7 g |
| Protein | 1 g |
| Cholesterol | 14 mg |
| Sodium | 26 mg |
Reviews
Preparation looked as good as a moon shot though the baking result was flat bubble flecked cookies. I think that using a European style butter with its higher fat content was the mistake here, too bad!
Really needed to see the video to understand how to make the dough stick together. My first attempt the log crumbled too easily when cutting it and forced me to make slices that were too thick.
Next time I’ll do better.
Half way through wrapping the dough in the parchment paper, i realized i forgot to put the egg. So, I decided that the cookies would have no real reason to go into the oven without raw egg in the mix. Before I put the egg in, the dough was hard to work with. It was very sandy and my logs would break at least 5 times before it held together fine. After I put the egg in the sandy dough, it did become moist and squishy. But, it definitely became more easy to work with, because it would hold together perfectly when I rolled it up. After they came out of the oven the cookies were still sandy, soft yet still with a crunch. I do think you should add the egg at the end, I don’t know if it defeats the sandy texture of the Sable cookies, but the dough did become much easier to work with and at the end of baking, the cookies still were delicious!
Loved these! Although a little more time-intensive than the average cookie, they are worth the effort. 2 Keys: Make sure the butter is fully softened, otherwise it’s hard to get the dough to come together. And FN is right – do not overwork the dough or they’ll lose their texture. Overall, a hit at the party I hosted.
If you live in a dry climate or high altitude, I would recommend adding at least some of the egg white to keep them from being too dry after baking.
If you live in a dry climate or high altitude, I would recommend adding at least some of the egg white to keep them from being too dry after baking.
Could not get the dough to hold together. Not sure this recipe is worth the substantial effort.
I am a beginner at the whole baking thing and i get frustrated me when something comes out wrong but these cookies came out great. I am so happy I making even more dough and freezing it so I can make them throughout the week.
Difficult recipe turned out not horrible.
I had sablés growing up, so thought this would be a nice reminder of my childhood, but like others have said the dough would just not come together; we were even using the stand mixer. So called the mom, she said doesn’t have a sablés recipe but grandmother in France is a baker and probably does. Hmm, it was 9 pm in France but we call my grandmother and Yay, she’s awake, and Yay she’s alright to skype.
So she hears the recipe and thinks not enough liquid, we try adding the egg white from the egg the dough comes together better and we can form and bake, but I also took the time to write down and work on converting my grandmothers recipe, next time I’ll just use that one.
In the end they taste good, the smell is great!
This is one of the best chocolate cookie recipes I have ever found. It is not a “sweet kids” recipe. It is more for grown-ups. It is not an easy recipe to make if you are just starting out baking. It needs a very good chocolate and you have to grate the chocolate very fine. Part of what makes the dough start to come together is the fine grated chocolate beginning to soften and hold shape. If the chocolate is not grated fine enough, your dough will not form. A cool trick is to use a clean coffee grinder to grate your chocolate. (This also works for spices.
I made this recipe for my end of the year french class party. I was asked to make double chocolate chip cookies, but i never liked the recipes. When i saw this, it was perfect, and they taste delicious too!
Also you must use high grade bitter sweet chocolate and ensure it is finely chopped or grated. a food processor is best for this, and i don’t recommend grating chocolate by hand – it is messy and dangerous. Go ahead and freeze a single bar of something nice like Shaeffen berger 70% and then give it a gentle, fine chop. it will take several minutes, but the finer you get it chopped the better texture your cookies will have. Keep chopping without making skin contact until you have finely grated or almost powdery looking chocolate and gently dump into your bowl. Mix quickly and gather dough into lump before rolling out as I said below.