• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

www.WeekendBakery.com

Weekend Bakery

The place for the ambitious home baker

  • Home
  • Webshop
    • Rijsmandjes
    • Brood bakken
      • Mixen & Mengen
      • Snijden, rollen, schrapen
      • Rijzen
      • Bakken
      • Presenteren
    • Broodbak sets
    • Uitstekers
      • Uitsteker sets
      • Speciale XL uitstekers
      • Dieren
      • Bloemen en planten
      • Transport
      • Vormen
      • Lente & zomer
      • Kerst & winter
      • Halloween
      • Overig
    • Zoet bakken
      • Bakgereedschap
      • Papieren bakvormen
      • Overige bakvormen
      • Speculaasvormen en koekstempels
      • Houten lepels, spatels, schepjes…
      • Kerst & feest
  • Recipes
    • Best bread recipes
    • Sweet baking
    • Nederlandse recepten
    • Bread baking tips
    • Bread movies
    • WKB projects
    • Article index
  • Info
    • Contact Us
    • Baking Conversion Tools
    • Why Home Baking
    • Baking Glossary
    • Article Index
    • Bread Scoring with the Lame / Brood insnijden met de Lame
    • Send Us Your Loaf
    • Your Loaves!
  • About us
  • Show Search
Hide Search
You are here: Home / Sweet baking / French sablés: Perfect cut-out cookies!

French sablés: Perfect cut-out cookies!

2 Comments Sweet baking

These French shortbread cookies hold their shape very well during baking

Klik hier voor de Nederlandse versie
Maybe you know them from a holiday in Brittany or Normandy, tasty French sablé cookies with a gentle crunch and delicious buttery taste. ‘Sable’ actually means sand in French, and the cookies are described as having a ‘sandy’ texture. These homemade sablés actually taste even better than the store bought ones, provided you use good ingredients and fresh butter of course. The good thing about this dough is that it dos not spread while baking, so they are an ideal for cutting out beautiful and fun shapes with your favorite cutters.

Franse sablé koekjes
Franse sablé koekjes
Franse sablé koekjes
Franse sablé koekjes
Franse sablé koekjes

These cookies taste great as is and do not need any form of decoration, but you can of course always express your creativity in that department. You can also decide for yourself whether you want to add the freshness of lemon, sweetness of vanilla or perhaps a drop of almond extract for a more intense flavor. Lemon matches the summer, almond taste very nice on colder days, plain is also an option of course.

The method of rolling the dough between two sheets of baking paper, cooling it and then cutting the shapes works very well, so stick to this step for best results!


Ingredients for the sablés

250 g pastry flour or all purpose or plain flour

135 g butter, softened (make sure it is fresh)

100 g sugar

2 g baking powder

1.5 g salt

1 small egg (50 g)

Zest from one small organic lemon or a tsp vanilla extract

1 beaten egg for brushing the cookies (add one teaspoon of water for easy brushing)

IMG_9590

How to make the sablé biscuits


In a bowl, combine flour, salt and baking powder and set aside. Combine butter and sugar in a bowl and beat 1 to 2 minutes with a hand mixer or dough whisk until creamy. Add the egg and lemon zest (or vanilla) and whisk until it is absorbed. Now add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat / stir until completely incorporated. Quickly complete the work by hand to bring it together to a nice smooth dough.

Recept Franse Sablés - Zandkoekjes uit Frankrijk
Recept Franse Sablés - Zandkoekjes uit Frankrijk
Recept Franse Sablés - Zandkoekjes uit Frankrijk
Recept Franse Sablés - Zandkoekjes uit Frankrijk
Recept Franse Sablés - Zandkoekjes uit Frankrijk

Put your dough between two sheets of grease-proof baking paper and with a rolling pin, roll the dough to a uniform thickness of about 3 mm. Ensure that the paper is smooth and there are no visible creases. Place the dough, still between the sheets of baking paper, on a baking tray and put it in the refrigerator for a period of 1 hour. If you are in a hurry, you can use the freezer (approximately 20 minutes). If the amount of dough is too large for your tray or fridge to fit, you can also divide it into two batches before you roll it out.

IMG_9613

Preheat your oven to 160 °C / 320 °F, conventional setting.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator or freezer, place it on your work surface and remove the top layer of baking paper. Put this paper on the baking tray which is going into the oven.

Now use your favorite cookie cutters to cut out the shapes you like and place the cookies on the baking paper on the baking tray. Brush the cookies with the beaten egg to which you have added a teaspoon of water for easy brushing.

IMG_9616

Franse sablés : Een fijn deegje om te maken
Franse sablés houden mooi hun vorm tijdens het bakken
Franse sablés houden mooi hun vorm tijdens het bakken
Franse sablés houden mooi hun vorm tijdens het bakken
Franse sablés houden mooi hun vorm tijdens het bakken

Place the baking tray in the preheated oven (we use the top tier for the most even bake with our own oven, so see what works best for you) and bake 12 to 14 minutes, depending on your oven and the size of the cookies. Keep an eye on your cookies and take them out when they display a warm golden color. Remove the baking tray from the oven and place the cookies on a rack to cool.

If you want to make them in advance, that works fine too. Store the fresh cookies in the freezer and take them out half an hour before you plan to serve them. You can also store them in a sealed container. We advice to eat them within two days, to take full advantage of the fresh butter taste!

IMG_9650

Visit our sweet baking shop to discover our ever expanding cookie cutter collection!

Sweet baking

Reader Interactions

Share Your Comments & Feedback Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Please read our comment policy below before submitting your comment:

  • Only comment or ask a question about a recipe as shown on our website
  • Only comment or ask a question when you have sticked to the recipe
  • We love to help you, but please do not make the questions feel like school homework

The coming months we will take a break from answering comments on our Weekend Bakery site.

Due to recent events our priorities have shifted and we need to focus on what matters most and give attention to our family and people who need us.

Comments

  1. Phyllis Corella says

    August 7, 2016 at 23:21

    Why is there not a print choice? I want some of your recipes, but I would have to use so many pieces of paper to print it.

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      August 12, 2016 at 12:14

      Hello Phyllis,
      Yes there is a print option for you. If you use the print option from your browser you can print all of our recipes in a more compact version without the pictures. (see right top corner of your screen, click on the three horizontal black stripes that opens your browser menu and choose the print option).

      Hope this works!

      Reply

Primary Sidebar

Search

Categories

  • Best bread recipes
  • Bread baking tips
  • Bread movies
  • Highlight
  • Nederlandse recepten & tips
  • Seasonal Suggestions
  • Sweet baking
  • WKB projects

Info

  • About Us
  • Article Index
  • Baking Conversion Tools
  • Baking Glossary
  • Bread Scoring with the Lame / Brood insnijden met de Lame
  • Contact Us
  • Send Us Your Loaf
  • Why Home Baking
  • Your loaves 22
  • Your Loaves More 1 !
  • Your Loaves More 2 !
  • Your Loaves More 3 !
  • Your Loaves More 4 !
  • Your Loaves!

Seasonal Suggestions

Video: Baking pizza in our outdoor oven – short clips to inspire you

Our favorite simple sandwich loaf

Ficelle with sourdough

The perfect chocolate chip cookies

A fun & fast fougasse

Pinwheels & pain aux raisins

Footer

Recent Articles

  • Old friends raisin bread – A new favorite!
  • Taking a break…but not from baking!
  • Pumpkin buns with salted maple butter
  • Favorite flatbreads: The Turkish lahmacun – our style
  • Guest posting: Wouter Groeneveld – Save the sourdough
  • Buns with spelt & oat poolish
  • Guest posting: Wouter Groeneveld – Red Zuurdesem
  • Stefano shares: Baking in Italy during times of lock down
  • 10 year Weekend Bakery: Our 10 best loved recipes!
  • Video: Baking pizza in our outdoor oven – short clips to inspire you

Tags

banneton boule Bread bread baking tips bread oven bread tips brioche butter cakes cheese chocolate christmas cinnamon Coffee Cookies couche cranberries Dutch flatbread focaccia Holiday baking honey hybrid method Laminated dough muesli muffins no knead pain rustique Patisserie pie pies & tarts pizza poolish preferment rofco bread oven rye rye bread scones sourdough stretch&fold vanilla Viennoiserie walnuts whole wheat yeast

WKB on Social Media

  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Favorites

  • De Zandhaas – Our local flour mill
  • Real Bread Campaign
  • The Fresh Loaf
  • The Perfect Loaf

All photos and text Copyright 2005-2020 by weekendbakery.com