Vanilla Bean Sablé Cookies

These vanilla bean sablés are the French version of shortbread cookies. They are simple, with just a few ingredients, but they are a revelation. 

See those tiny dots? They are vanilla seeds scraped from soft and plump vanilla beans. It's a simple ingredient, but it brings so much flavor to the cookie. You won't be able to have just one cookie. 

Cornmeal Sablés | Sweet Corn Cookies

Sablés are are French shortbread cookie (pronounced "SAB-blay"). They are sweet, buttery, and crumbly. They're very hard to resist. 

The flavor of these cookies is reminiscent of a mildly sweet cornbread but with the crunchiness of a butter cookie. From what I understand, the difference between shortbread cookies and French sablés is the inclusion of eggs or egg yolks in the French version. 

Shortbread Jam Cookies with a Streusel Topping

Shortbread jam-filled cookies with a streusel topping....  French vanilla sablé dough topped with jam and ringed with a buttery cinnamon vanilla streusel. 

My favorite type of cookie is anything shortbread or sablé. Some of my favorites include pecan butterscotch shortbreads, hazelnut shortbreads, cornmeal sablés, and lemon vanilla shortbreads. 

Peanut Brownie Sablés

These peanut brownie sablés are the delicious result from combining a peanut butter shortbread dough with a brownie dough, and throwing in some chopped roasted peanuts for a little crunch.

These peanut brownie sablés are rich, peanut-y, and super chocolate-y.

Easy Slice and Bake Lemon Shortbread Cookies

These easy slice and bake lemon shortbread cookies possess the crumbly melt-in-your-mouth texture of traditional Scottish shortbread.

The dough for these lemon shortbread cookies takes just 10 minutes to measure and mix. Once you've mixed the dough, you wrap it and refrigerate or freeze it, where the dough sits ready to slice and bake when you have a cookie emergency.

Spiced Pumpkin Sablés with Pumpkin Seed Streusel

These Spiced Pumpkin Sablés begin with a cinnamon sablé, are topped with a pumpkin and cream cheese mixture, and then sprinkled with an amazing pumpkin seed streusel. 

These cookies begin with a butter cookie dough, then a layer of pumpkin cream cheese, and finally a layer pumpkin seed streusel.

Espresso Chocolate Sablés

These Espresso Chocolate Sablés are filled with the rich flavor of coffee and chocolate, and have a wonderful crumbly texture. 

Sablés you ask?  A sablé is the French shortbread! It's just fancier because of the name... and maybe a little more grown up.

Chocolate Hazelnut Sablés

I'm pretty excited about these Chocolate Hazelnut Sablés.

First, I figured out how to put the accent over the "é."

Second, I was able to peel these hazelnuts so easily this time! I toasted them in a 325 degree F toaster oven for about 15 minutes, shaking the pan every 5 minutes (I actually started with frozen hazelnuts). Once I pulled the pan from the oven, I covered the hazelnuts with a paper towel, and started rubbing them together in the pan while they were still warm. In no time at all, the hazelnuts were peeled.**

These Chocolate Hazelnut Sablés may look like your average chocolate cookie, but the chocolate is very bittersweet, and the taste is quite sophisticated.

They are perfect with a glass of milk, a cup of coffee, or a glass of cabernet.

Chocolate Hazelnut Sablés

Makes about 55 cookies.

Ingredients

1 C hazelnuts, roasted and peeled**

1 C granulated sugar

2 tsp espresso powder disolved in 1 1/2 T warm water

5 ounces bittersweet (60 to 70 per cent) chocolate, chopped. 

6 T Dutch process cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 3/4 C all purpose flour

1 C cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

Instructions

1. In the bowl of a food processor with the metal blade, pulse the hazelnuts until roughly chopped. 
2. Add the sugar and espresso and pulse a few more times until the hazelnuts are finely chopped. 
3. Add the chocolate, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt, and pulse a few more times, until the chocolate is finely chopped. 
4. Add 1 C of the flour and the butter and pulse until both ingredients are incorporated. This should only be a few pulses, until you cannot see bits of butter. 
5. Scrape the dough onto a large piece of wax paper and gradually knead in the rest of the flour.
6. Divide the dough in half and roll into two 11 inch logs. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for two hours. Freeze the dough if you are not planning to use it right away. 
7. When it's time to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 
8. Line baking sheets with parchment paper (I alternated two baking sheets and reused the parchment paper).
9. Cut the logs into 3/8 inch slices and place them about one and 1/2 inches apart on the baking sheet. 
10. Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, for 9 to 12 minutes. I baked mine for 10 minutes. They will be soft at first, but will firm up as they cool.
11. Cool on the baking sheet for about 3 minutes, and then cool on a wire rack. 

This recipe has been adapted from Nancy Baggett's Simply Sensational Cookies. It's a pretty amazing book.