The first cookie I tackled were these French Sable cookies with a recipe I got from Food Network. They promised to be a rich, dark chocolate cookie that looked quite pretty.
In the cookie description they called these cookies “sandy.” I had never had a sandy cookie, and wasn’t sure what to expect, but after making these cookies I understand why. The dough is more of a crumbly mass that you have to press together into the shape of a log (which takes a bit of work to get it to stay), then you refrigerate it before cutting and baking the cookies. But even after refrigerating the log, I still had a tough time slicing it without is crumbling. It is this crumbliness that leads to a cookie with a crumbly taste, even though it doesn’t fall apart when you bite into it. The cookies rise a little, but not much, so you want to make sure the log’s diameter is about the diameter of the cookie you are looking for. I made one 1″ and one almost 2″ just to see if there was a difference. I like the bigger cookies, but I would recommend refrigerating the pressed log for 2 hours so that it is more set all the way through for easier cutting. The recipe also said to bake them in muffin tins for uniform cookies. I tried that, but I think the cookies would have had to been 3″ diameter for that to make any difference.
I followed the recipe almost exactly, just omitting the salt because I only had salted butter.
While these cookies have a really good, dark chocolate flavor, I get kind of hung up on the texture. I don’t know that I will make these cookies again (liking gooey cookies as much as I do), however I may attempt to take this idea for the dark chocolate flavor and see if I can work with it to create a different type of cookie with the same intense flavor.
French Double Chocolate Sable Cookies
Yield: about 3 dozen cookies
Ingredients
- 3 oz bittersweet chocolate, frozen for 10 minutes
- 1 1/4 c all-purpose flour
- 1/3 c cocoa powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 11 Tbsp salted butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 large egg yolk
Directions
1. Grate (I got really sick of grating, so I just finely chopped the chocolate and it worked fine) the chilled chocolate and set aside.
2. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.
3. Beat 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 together until combined but still crumbly. Fold in grated chocolate with a spatula. Bring the dough together by lightly squeezing in your hands.
4. Divide the dough in half. Lay half the dough on a long sheet of waxed paper and press into a log. Repeat with remaining dough and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
5. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
6. Slice logs into 1/2-inch thick and place on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.
7. Bake until cookies set on the outside, about 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on the pans, about 5 minutes.
8. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool completely.
