Monday, August 19, 2013

It's The Little Things

There are times when I shouldn't be allowed within an asses roar of the internet, or a credit card.  Combine them both and I am lethal... eBay, Etsy and Lakeland are my usual ports of call when I want to splash my non-existent cash and I'm very good at hiding my purchases from The Hubs.  Honestly, if he knew about half of the stuff I bought on the sly, then I'd really be in hot water.  Oh, I forgot that he reads the blog too.  Never mind...

A few months ago I saw some very dotey little cookie cutters on another website and bookmarked them, together with a millionty other items I couldn't possibly live without, even though the house is crammed to capacity.  And I bought them.  To save on postage, I used Parcel Motel - another site that gleefully enables my shopping habits - and they were very very cute indeed.  They sat on the kitchen table for about a month waving at me from their cute little wrappers but I was on a blog hiatus due to Dodgy Back so I ignored them.  Until last night.  You see I had forgotten to put the butter back into the fridge and it was at the stage that is best described as malleable.  Perfect for making the sweetest, shortest, butteriest biscuits in the world.  And here we are.


I got about 50 biscuits out of this recipe using my cutters.  They cool very quickly and can therefore be devoured at speed, or kept in an airtight tin for a little treat.  As usual, they were hoovered up in work by the poor people who never get fed.  And I kept a few for The Hubs.  Because I'm kind like that.



Chocolate Sable Biscuits 

400g Plain Flour
50g Cocoa Powder
170g Caster Sugar
250g Butter (as soft as you can get it)

Preheat your oven to 180c/Gas Mark 4.  Line two large baking sheets with baking paper.


In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients together until they've formed a solid ball of dough.  (I use my Kenwood food processor and K Beater because I am very lazy and it does such a good job!)


Drop the dough onto a large sheet of cling film and flatten it down into a square about 1cm thick.  Wrap up the dough and stick it into the freezer for 10 minutes so the butter chills.  It's much more manageable to cut out shapes this way...

After 10 minutes, remove the dough from the freezer and let it sit for a minute.  Unwrap it, stick another sheet of clingfilm on top and roll it out until it's about 4-5mm thick. 


Start cutting shapes and place them onto the lined baking sheets.  The dough doesn't spread too much so you only need to leave about 2cm space between each biscuit.



Bake for 10-12 minutes until the biscuit feels firm to the touch.  Cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.  I just lift the sheet and place it on the rack, so I can reuse the baking sheets.

Feel free to roll, and re-roll the dough to use up the trimmings.  Just make sure you chill it each time before you start cutting out shapes.  Listen, I make the mistakes so you don't have to!!






4 comments:

  1. Totally making these today!! Love the EAT ME squares. Congrats on the Sainsbury's feature :) x

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    1. Imen, thanks so much. I was on Cloud Nine when I heard and I got an actual copy of the magazine today. Framing happening!

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  2. Eyes were on stalks when i spotted these little cuties in the Sainsbury's magazine...so i tracked the cutters down on the internet and am waiting for them to be delivered. Just can't wait to bake. Thank you.

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