French Butter Cookies (Sablés)

French Butter Cookies (Sablés)

• 1 large egg
• 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (2 3/4 ounces) granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon table salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups (7 1/2 ounces) all-purpose flour

(optional)

• 1 large egg white, lightly beaten with 1 teaspoon water
• 4 teaspoons coarse sugar

1. Place the egg in a small saucepan, covered with water, and bring to a boil. Remove from heat, cover and let stand for 15 minutes. Transfer the egg to ice water and chill for 5 minutes, then crack and peel the shell, discarding (or eating) the egg white. Press the yolk through a fine-mesh strainer in to a small bowl. (Basically, hard boil an egg yolk and mince finely.)
2. Cream together egg yolk, butter, sugar and salt on medium speed with an electric mixer of some sort. We used one of those $10 hand mixers with much success, so a Kitchenaid or whatever is hardly necessary. When the mixture is light and fluffy, after about 4-5 minutes, add the vanilla, then gently mix in the flour at low speed until just combined.
3. Press the dough in to a cohesive mass, divide in half, and roll each piece in to a log about 6 inches long and 1 3/4 inches in diameter, wrapped in saran wrap, parchment or wax paper. Chill until firm in the refrigerator.
4. Adjust the oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and preheat to 350 degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper (we used nonstick baking sheets instead, which tend to brown things really quickly). Slice 1/4 inch cookies and place 1 inch apart on the baking sheets. Optionally, gently brush the cookies with egg wash and sprinkle with coarse sugar. Normal refined sugar won’t work, it’ll just sort of dent your cookies and disappear into them.
5. Bake until lightly browned around the edges. Allow to cool for a few minutes on the sheets (to firm up and ease transfer) then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

For chocolate sables…
Reduce flour to 1 1/3 cups (6 2/3 ounces) and add 1/4 cup (1 ounce) Dutch-processed cocoa to the dry ingredients. I also added 1 teaspoon instant espresso and used 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt instead of 1/4 teaspoon table salt.

To make chocolate sandwiches…
Once the sables are cooled, melt your favorite chocolate over a bain-marie, spread on one cookie and press another on top.

To make spiral sables…
Lay one rectangle of rolled out chocolate sable dough down on parchment or wax paper and top with an additional layer of vanilla sable dough. Press lightly to merge together, then roll up in to a cylinder.