Pronounced “sah BLEY,” which means sand. The first step to making these cookies involves creating “sand.”
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 14 tsp unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 egg yolks
- 1/2 tsp cocoa powder
Jam
- 1 cup strawberries (fresh or frozen)
- Juice of 1/2 lemon
Instructions
- Sift the flour into a large bowl. Dice butter into half-inch cubes and rub into the flour using your fingers to create a sandy consistency. You want a sandy consistency as sablé means “sand” in French. Add the sugar and salt and stir to incorporate. Note: Don’t add the sugar and salt first to the flour because we want the butter to mix with the flour and not cream with the sugar.
- Create a well in the flour mixture and add the egg yolks and vanilla extract. Use a spatula or your hands to mix together the yolks and vanilla, then slowly incorporate the flour mixture to form a loose ball, just barely mixed. Turn the dough onto a work surface and divide in half.
- Take half of the dough and mix in the cocoa powder. Fraiser, or smear, the plain vanilla dough and the chocolate dough separately, using your palm to spread the dough across the counter surface, then use a pastry scraper or spatula to bring the dough back together. Do this four times for each dough. This mixes the dough all the way to create a nice “melt- in-the-mouth” texture, but if you over mix it will become tough. Wrap the two doughs separately with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for an hour to relax the gluten and avoid a tough cookie.
- While the dough chills, make the strawberry jam: Put the strawberries, sugar and lemon juice in a small pot and cook until 230°F. Stir occasionally and mash the strawberries as you go to break them down. Once the jam reaches 230°F, remove from heat and transfer the jam to another container to allow to cool fully. Note: If you do not have a thermometer, you can do a spoon test: Scoop some of the jam into a spoon and hold the spoon vertically. It is ready when the consistency has a slow, viscous slide.
- Break each disc of dough into four pieces and gently knead them back together; this redistributes the chill of the dough and makes for an even temperature and texture.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking tray with parchment paper. On a floured surface, first roll out the vanilla dough to 1⁄4-inch thickness. Cut into 2-inch squares, place on the prepared sheet tray and bake for 7–8 minutes, until the bottom is golden and the top is still pale. Remove the cookies from the sheet tray and onto a cooling rack as soon as they are out of the oven so they don’t keep baking. While the vanilla cookies are baking, repeat the rolling and cutting step with the chocolate dough and bake as instructed.
- Once all the cookies are cool, apply a teaspoon of strawberry jam onto a vanilla cookie, place a chocolate cookie on top and gently press down, changing the pressure around so the jam fills in as much of the middle as possible. A spoon or mini spatula can also be used to spread the jam evenly before placing the chocolate cookie.
- Enjoy! Try the vanilla on its own, try the chocolate on its own, then try the whole cookie sandwich together and notice how the different flavors interact with one another.
Notes
To experiment with the importance of vanilla, make these cookies twice: once with vanilla extract and once without. See what the flavors are like without it. Try the vanilla cookie without, try the chocolate cookie without, and try the whole sandwich without. Compare that to the ones with extract and see how the
flavors blend together.
flavors blend together.
