Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Chocolate Sablé Biscuits

So, what are these sablé biscuit yokes, I hear you ask.  Well, a Sablé is a French round shortbread biscuit which originates in Caen, in Normandy.  As part of our annual trip to France, myself & The Hubs normally scoff quite a lot of these biscuits and bring home one or ten packets for a teatime treat (usually on a rainy Saturday afternoon watching telly with a big cup of coffee for me and a mug of smelly tea for him).  This year, there's NO trip to France and I'm having withdrawal symptoms.  Now to be fair, we are spoiling ourselves this year and going to America instead on the trip of a lifetime to celebrate our 40th birthdays, but it doesn't stop me pining for my French biscuit fix.


Well, if I can't buy them, I'll just have to make them.  So I did.  And I made a little adjustment to the classic recipe to turn them into light and crumbly chocolate sablé biscuits.  The traditionalists would probably swoon in horror but they are buttery, chocolately and very delicious.  I did bring a large quantity into work on Monday, foolishly assuming there'd be some left the next day.  Wrong.  The biscuit monsters were out in full force and left nothing in the tin!  I'd recommend chilling the dough in the freezer rather than the fridge as the high butter content means that the dough softens very quickly - using the freezer helps to keep the dough cold and much easier to work with.  This quantity makes about 40 biscuits about 4cm in diameter,so if you don't want to feed a crowd, just halve the ingredients.




Chocolate Sablé Biscuits


400g Plain Flour
50g Cocoa Powder

170g Golden Caster Sugar
250g Butter, cubed & at room temperature (the warmer it is, the better the dough forms together)



Preheat your oven to 180c/Gas Mark 4.




Put the flour, cocoa, sugar & butter into a food processor & whizz until the mixture forms into a ball.




Place on a large sheet of clingfilm, flatten out, wrap it up & chill in the freezer for 10-15 minutes.





Remove the dough from the freezer, roll out between two sheets of cling film and cut into rounds.




Place the dough onto trays lined with sheets of baking paper and bake for 10-12 minutes.  They don't spread while they bake, so you can cram them onto the baking sheet.  Remove from the oven & allow to cool for 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.







9 comments:

  1. Managed to get my hands on one of these little circles of yumminess! Loved every last crumb! Thanks Aoife!

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  2. Your wife is a bully & even though I am in my sickbed, I had to write this up or face the "IM look"! Double chocolate banana muffins made for work tomorrow - get your order in now :)

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  3. These look sooo chocolatey! I'll have to give them a try. Thanks, Aoife!

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  4. Liking the look of these! Makes lots, which is always good. They probably won't make it to the biscuit tin, but how long will they keep for?

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  5. 3 days at least (the longest mine lasted before being devoured!)

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  6. I love the look of that dough. I am just itching to make these. Love the freezer tip too.

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  7. I love sable biscuits. Yesterday I saw similar recipe in my cookbook. I must make them. Do they keep shape well? I wonder if there is a point of using cookie cutters

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  8. Wiosanna, I use the cookie cutters for consistency and because the dough is so crumbly and fragile. They don't spread when they bake because there's no egg or raising agent, so they're very stable. They also don't rise, so if you roll them thinly, they stay thin.

    If you want a more freeform cookie, just roll them onto balls. I'm a bit precise when I bake, so I roll & cut instead!

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