These chocolate sablés are sooo good.
Chocolatier Fran Bigelow’s recipe incorporates potato flour, which gives the cookies a tender, crumbly texture that makes them irresistible. These quantities result in a lot of cookies – Bigelow says 60 to 75. I made two logs from the dough and immediately froze the larger one – as it was, the smaller roll made well over 20 cookies. There aren’t many left now though…
Chocolate Sablés
(adapted from a recipe in Fran Bigelow’s Pure Chocolate)
- 240g (8oz) semisweet chocolate (I used Callebaut 811 54% cacao)
- 250g (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 220g (1 cup)white sugar
- 1 large (59g) egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used homemade)
- 140g (just under 1 cup) plain (AP) flour (originally recipe specified 1 cup cake flour, but we can’t get that here)
- 170g (1 cup) potato starch flour
- 55g (½ cup) Dutch-processed cocoa
- pinch of salt
- Demerara or raw sugar for decorating
1. In a medium bowl, sift the flour, potato flour and cocoa together. Even if you don’t normally sift, make an exception this time, or the cocoa and potato flour will be lumpy and won’t mix properly. I think the sifting also lightens the flour to create a crumblier cookie. Stir in the salt.
2. Melt the chocolate in the microwave on high – use short bursts and stir frequently, making sure you don’t scorch the chocolate. Allow this to cool, but not set up.
3. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter on medium until smooth and pale, then add the sugar and continue beating until smooth. Scrape down the sides often and expect to beat the mixture for a good 3 to 5 minutes until light and fluffy.
4. Beat in the egg and vanilla until blended. Add the melted chocolate and mix on low to medium until just combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as required.
5. Add the flour mixture and mix at low speed until just combined. Do not overmix. Finish by stirring with a wooden spoon or spatula if there are little bits of flour left unincorporated.
6. Put the bowl in the fridge for 10 – 20 minutes until the dough is firm enough to handle, but not too stiff.
7. Place a large sheet of parchment paper on the counter, and pour over a generous amount of Demerara sugar (about ¼ cup, but I was just eyeballing it). Shape half the dough into a thick log (about 6cm or 2½” in diameter) and roll it in the sugar until the sides are well coated (leave the ends uncoated). Wrap the log in a sheet of parchment or cling film and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. Repeat with the remaining dough. The logs can remain in the fridge for up to 3 days, or frozen for longer storage.
8. When it’s time to bake, preheat the oven to 175C/350F or 160C /320F(fan assisted). Remove a log of dough from the fridge and allow it to come to room temperature for about 10 minutes.
9. Slice the log into 6mm/¼” thick discs (or for any sewers out there, the width of a standard seam allowance). Lay the slices onto parchment lined trays, leaving 2½ cm/1″ between each.
10. Bake for 10 – 12 minutes, until the cookies have expanded and move slightly when very gently prodded. Bigelow’s instructions say to bake “until the tops are dull”. Remove the sablés from the oven and allow them to rest very briefly before carefully transferring to a wire rack to cool. They’re very fragile – be prepared to eat any broken ones!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
You are the queen of chocolate cookies! Those look melt in the mouth delicieuses x
They look lovely! I would have the broken ones, on vanilla ice cream any day!!!!!!!
Ooh yum! You can really see the lovely texture to these sables in the closeups!
Thank you! They are so perfect with a cup of tea that I’ve pronounced them to be my new favourite cookie.. :)
Waw, Celia!!
These chocolate cookies look to die for,….oooy yes!
Lovely enjoyed with a good fresh cup of café latte!
those look delicious!
to make cake flour all you need is 2 tb cornstarch per cup of all purpose flour. sift together and you’re done. here you can find it allright but it can get very pricey.
Sophie, thank you!
Dana, thanks for that! I’m usually happy to sub regular flour – most cake flour is superbleached and treated with chemicals (or so I’ve been told), so I’ve never made it a particular quest to find any.
king arthur has unbleached cake flour, no added chemicals, but expensive. it’s $4.50 for a 2 lb box. their unbleached all-purpose is the same price, for a 5 lb bag.
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/unbleached-cake-flour-blend
i linked to their site because they have a nice recipe section, thought you might like a look. i don’t know if they even ship outside usa… i like their bread flour, but that cake stuff is just not worth it in my book.
Celia, these look divine – my next baking project, thanks!
I was having a bit of an afternoon crave for something just baked, sweet and delicious….so I thought I would check out what offerings you have on FJ&LC to tempt me (since something baked isn’t possible right now at work). And sure enough, you haven’t disappointed. I am picturing an ice cream sandwich with these biscuits and some reallly nice vanilla bean ice cream. Or perhaps some caramel pecan icecream….Yum!
Dana and Amanda, thank you!
Spice Girl, I think these would make perfect icecream sandwiches! Now there’s a plan for the weekend.. :)
These look delicious. I’m making a note to try them when I’m next in the mood to make biscuits!
These do indeed look good – if I didn’t have some of Jo’s chocolate porridge cake to hand, I would be feeling quite hard done by. And now I know what cake flour is – I’ve always wondered!
Celia,
Thank you for putting up the cup/teaspoon measurements along with the metric.
I’m making these as soon as I get some potato flour.
I love chocolate cookies with a cup of coffee!
Heidi
Suelle, Heidi, thank you – I hope you get around to trying them, they’re a nice recipe! I’ve had to freeze my surplus to stop myself eating them all ! And I still have the big log frozen…
Choclette, cake flour does produce a lighter finish, but I usually find plain makes a reasonable substitute. Although Dana’s suggestion is an easy option too!
[…] saw them here at Celia’s blog and she had the recipe set up for American measurements. They are […]
Celia-
I made these yesterday! The first batch disappeared- they are so very good!
I posted the pictures on my blog and linked up to yours to share the recipe, I hope you don’t mind.
You have made many Americans happy with just this one recipe- and today your nuts are tempting me to try them.
Thanks for sharing the foodie wealth!
Heidi
Heidi, yours look gorgeous! Thanks for posting about them. I have to point out though – the original author of the recipe, Fran Bigelow, is an American based in Seattle, WA, so what I’ve done is actually add metric measurements for those of us outside the US! :)
I’m going to make another batch today! :)
Celia
Oh these sound like a biscuit to have with a cuppa tea. But what is potato starch flour? Or is there a substitute … cornflour?
Gill, the potato starch flour, or just potato flour as it’s known here, is a common thickener. It’s usually sold in both Asian grocery stores and health food stores, if you can’t find it in the supermarket. Cornflour/cornstarch might work, but I’ve never tried it…