Double Chocolate Sables
Like most delicious buttery treats, Sables come from France. Sable translated is sand, which describes their beautifully crumbly shortbread texture.
When I was last in France I saw a beautiful packaged up bag of Sables being sold in a pâtisserie, which is not an unusual sight in its self, but I was drawn to the size of them. Normally Sables are a standard biscuit size, (two to three mouthfuls if you’re being dainty!) but these were tiny, just an inch square or so. Now I am not one who would normally opt for a smaller biscuit when given the choice, but for some reason I was drawn to their dinky size.
When cutting out your own biscuits please, by all means, revert back to a standard size biscuit, but if you fancy following me down the petite road, then follow the cutting guide below.
These look wonderful in little packages, tied with ribbon with a little festive sprig to be given as gifts, or you could make a double batch and fill up a large tin and take along to your festive celebrations.
Double Chocolate Sables
140g plain flour
25g cocoa powder (unsweetened)
110g unsalted butter, softened
130g caster sugar
100g 70% dark chocolate, grated
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 170ºC and line two baking trays with parchment.
Using an electric beater, beat butter, caster sugar, salt and vanilla together until lighter in colour and fluffy in texture (about 5 minutes)
In a separate bowl, sieve together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder.
Once the butter mixture is ready, gently tip in the dry ingredients along with the grated chocolate. Briefly mix until just combined and it has come together to form a crumbly dough.
Lightly dust your surface with flour and roll out the dough to 1 cm thickness. From here you can cut the desired size you wish, or for the smaller biscuits, cut the edges away to make a large square and then using a knife, cut into 1 inch squares.
Gently transfer them to the baking trays, leaving a 2 cm space between them and sprinkle them lightly with caster sugar.
Bake for approximately 10 minutes, or until the biscuits have puffed up a little and have formed small cracks on the surface. Leave to cool on a wire rack. If you have chosen a larger sized biscuit then they will take a little longer to bake, so keep an eye on them.
The additional grated chocolate that goes into these yummy biscuits, adds to the intense chocolate hit and makes them a luxurious treat. I hope you enjoy making them, eating them, wrapping them and giving them!
