Basic Sablé

Chocolate sablé

Matcha sablé

Sometimes I have the urge to bake something (mostly when I’m bored) so one time I decided to make a simple sablé (or shortbread or butter cookies). Sablé is a very versatile biscuit, you can pretty much add any flavour you want. It has simple you-can-easily-find-them-in-your-pantry ingredients and takes less than an hour to make.

I found the recipe on my school notes (I study patisserie, you see) and took it up a notch (or two) by adding matcha (green tea) and chocolate powder, et voila I came up with two different types of sablé.

By using almond meal (or ground almond if you wish) the biscuits taste nuttier than when you only use plain flour.

Basic Sablé (makes 20 biscuits)

What you need:

50 grams icing sugar                                                              

                                                          

100 grams butter, softened                                                                       

1 egg yolk

90 grams flour

40 grams almond meal

Coarse sugar for rolling (I used coffee sugar crystals that I found at my local Woolies)

For chocolate sablé I substituted 20 grams of flour with 20 grams of chocolate powder.

For matcha sablé I simply added 2.5 teaspoons of matcha powder without substituting anything.

How to do it:

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Sift the flour, almond meal and your preferred flavouring. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and icing sugar together. Add the egg yolk and mix thoroughly.

Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture until it forms a ball, be careful not to overmix.

Roll the dough  until it forms a log with roughly 3 cm in diameter and sprinkle it with coarse sugar. Wrap it in cling wrap.

Put the dough in the fridge until it is quite firm (roughly 1.5 hours) or to speed up the process put it in freezer for about 30 minutes.

Cut the log into 1 cm slices (in thickness), arrange them on the baking tray with a little gap in between the cookies as they will spread a wee bit.

Bake for 12 minutes or until the edges are golden (if your oven is like mine, make sure that you turn the tray 3/4 through the baking process to avoid burning on one side).

Rest for a few minutes before transferring them to cooling rack to cool completely.

ENJOY! xx