Chocolate Sablés (or Chocolate French Butter Cookies)

These crumbly chocolate sables are a twist on the classic French butter cookie and every bit as good as the original. Stuff with dark chocolate chips and white chocolate bits for an even more dynamic taste.

The Winter Olympics are here, and we’re SNOW excited! Settling into a full-time job and life in a new part of the city has been an intense process over the past four months, but thankfully all the late-night baking has been keeping me grounded…perhaps more than I care to admit! I’m still working my way slowly but steadily through the long list of travel-inspired recipes from last summer’s trip to ten European countries, but of all the recipes that I’ve tried so far, these Chocolate Sablés (or Chocolate French Butter Cookiesé) are certainly a French-inspired favorite.

Classic sablés consist of a few top-quality ingredients: Butter, flour, and powdered sugar. The word “sablé” means “sand” in French, which is fitting for these perfectly crumbly shortbread biscuits. Last year I shared a recipe for Classic Scottish Shortbread after visiting Edinburgh (Spoiler Alert: We visited again this year!), so I decided to shake things up by throwing a bit of smoky chocolate and cookies ‘n’ cream white chocolate into the mix. Because who doesn’t love a chocolatey twist, right?

The verdict was resounding and clear: The buttery crumb of these biscuits, coupled with their subtle sweetness and chocolate overtones, made them an instant hit with all of my friends. (To give you a better sense of what I mean: Four friends of mine polished off two dozen of these bad babies in a 5-hour period!) What’s more, they stand up to shipping and look beautiful however you package them, whether in a classy cellophane bag or your run-of-the-mill Tupperware. If only I could have doled them out as thank-you gifts while I was wandering around trying to speak terrible French during my last day in Paris!

The reason why so many Paris locals were subjected to my horrific American-French accent that day, by the way, was actually not my fault: There was a massive train closure that affected all lines leaving from Montparnasse Station, as I learned while I watched the French news over a breakfast of croissant and jam crepes at my boutique hotel along Rue Saint-Dominique in the seventh arrondissement. After asking the (highly unhelpful) front desk assistant about how this would my travel that night to the south of France, where my Spanish friend would be picking me up, I decided to brave the streets of Paris and spend my last day scouting info from some of the locals.

As it turns out, everyone I approached got over the shock of my atrocious French quickly enough to help me figure out where I should go, how to inquire for additional info, and so forth. Highlights include the two armed guards that I stopped outside the Louvre (they didn’t speak a lick of English but were the sweetest pair!), the security guard at Montparnasse who actually tracked me down in the overcrowded station because he knew that I didn’t understand the French announcements over the speaker and said that I had to catch an emergency shuttle to a second station, the Parisienne who sat with me for two hours at the train station discussing the political/cultural climate in France, and the extremely nice man on the train with whom I spent five hours practicing French!

I guess that’s why I couldn’t help but be a bit extra excited when Frenchman Fourcade barely eked out Schempp for the Olympic Gold in the biathlon today–you might say I’m a borderline Francophile nowadays 😉 Guess he deserves a batch of these amazing Chocolate Sablés at the finish line next time!

 Love,

 

Chocolate Sablés (or Chocolate French Butter Cookies)

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 13 minutes

Total Time: 43 minutes

These crumbly chocolate sables are a twist on the classic French butter cookie and every bit as good as the original. Stuff with dark chocolate chips and white chocolate bits for an even more dynamic taste. Recipe slightly adapted from Southern Living.

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Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips (I used Cookies 'n' Cream chocolate, chopped)

Instructions

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat together butter and powdered sugar until fluffy and light. Beat in vanilla.
2. In a small bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Add gradually to butter mixture, beating all the while until incorporated completely.
3. Fold in both chocolate chips.
4. Shape dough into two 2-inch diameter logs. Wrap each log tightly in cling wrap and place in freezer for 45 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a baking pan and set aside.
6. Remove dough from freezer and unwrap cling wrap. Cut dough into 1/4-inch thick rounds and.place each round one inch apart on prepared baking sheet.
7. Bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, until set. Cool completely, then enjoy!