Last Christmas when I was visiting my parents in Los Angeles, my mother and I baked a lot of Taiwanese pineapple cakes. My parents travel to Taiwan regularly and my mother has purchased quite a few pineapple cake molds there -- square molds, rectangle molds, and even molds in the shape of the Taiwan. But she also had a set of round molds that were too short for pineapple cakes and she offered them to me. I eagerly accepted them because I immediately knew how I would use them -- to make cookies from Dorie Greenspan's Beurre & Sel collection.
When Dorie and her son Josh ran their Beurre & Sel cookie shops in New York City, all of the cookies they sold were baked in ring molds. An entire section of her cookbook Dorie's Cookies is devoted to Beurre & Sel cookies meant to be baked in rings -- or, in cupcake tins if you don't have rings. I own a lot of small cake rings -- well over one hundred -- and I have used them to bake Dorie's Beurre & Sel Jammers in the past. But because the rings are meant for cake, they are relatively tall and not the most convenient for baking cookies. My mother's molds from Taiwan are lightweight, seamless aluminum rings, two inches in diameter and only five-eights of an inch tall. It's as if they were meant to bake Beurre & Sel cookies.
I thought I would start with the most basic recipe, the "French Vanilla Sablés," which Dorie calls "the crown jewel of the Beurre & Sel collection." The dough is a mixture of butter, sugar, powdered sugar, egg yolks, vanilla, and all-purpose flour. You immediately roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment and either freeze or chill the dough until firm. Dorie says you can chill the dough for up to two days so I left mine in the fridge for a full day. When I was ready to bake, I used the ring molds to cut out the cookies and placed the cookies (still in the rings) on a parchment-lined baking sheet. I sprinkled coarse sugar on top of each cookie and baked them until they were golden around the edges. The recipe says it yields 30 cookies but I got 40.
I tasted a cookie soon after baking and I was surprised that the edges were hard and crunchy. I didn't like the texture -- I think a sablé should be sandy and tender. However, by the next day the edges had softened and I thought the cookie was much improved. There was still a lot of crunch from the coarse sugar, however -- and while I usually love crunchy sugar, I thought that the cookie was too sweet. The photo in the cookbook shows a cookie that is doused in coarse sugar, so I had been very generous with the sugar coating. In retrospect, I think a lighter hand would have been preferable.
I also decided to make Dorie's "Coconut-Lime Sablés." To make the cookie dough, you work lime zest into sugar until the sugar is moist and fragrant; beat the lime sugar with room temperature butter and salt; add vanilla; mix in all of the dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, cornstarch, ground coriander); and add shredded sweetened coconut. You're supposed to toast half of the coconut but I didn't bother. I rolled out the dough between two sheets of parchment and chilled it for a day.
I used the aluminum rings to cut out the cookies and transferred them to a baking sheet. You're supposed to sprinkle the cookies with shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened) before baking but I decided to try a product I had purchased on impulse -- butterscotch crunch from nuts.com. Described as "a sweet and crispy blend of ground coconut, nuts, caramelized sugar and toffee flavor," it tastes like candied coconut.
My coconut-lime cookies were thicker than the vanilla ones (the recipes instruct you to roll the dough for the latter to 1/4-inch thick, and the former to a scant 1/2-inch thick), and they rose around the edges during baking to form a sort of concave cup. While they were hot from the oven, I used a plastic spatula to press down the edges of all of the cookies to create flat pucks. Both Tom and I liked the coconut-lime sablés better than the vanilla ones. They were more interesting all around -- with a bright lime-coconut flavor and a wonderful chewy interior. And the butterscotch crunch was a terrific topping.
I'm a big fan of cookies baked in rings -- I'm a sucker for baked goods with an ultra-neat appearance. I'm definitely looking forward to baking more Beurre & Sel cookies at home!
Recipes: "French Vanilla Sablés" and "Coconut-Lime Sablés" from Dorie's Cookies by Dorie Greenspan.
Previous Posts:
When Dorie and her son Josh ran their Beurre & Sel cookie shops in New York City, all of the cookies they sold were baked in ring molds. An entire section of her cookbook Dorie's Cookies is devoted to Beurre & Sel cookies meant to be baked in rings -- or, in cupcake tins if you don't have rings. I own a lot of small cake rings -- well over one hundred -- and I have used them to bake Dorie's Beurre & Sel Jammers in the past. But because the rings are meant for cake, they are relatively tall and not the most convenient for baking cookies. My mother's molds from Taiwan are lightweight, seamless aluminum rings, two inches in diameter and only five-eights of an inch tall. It's as if they were meant to bake Beurre & Sel cookies.
I thought I would start with the most basic recipe, the "French Vanilla Sablés," which Dorie calls "the crown jewel of the Beurre & Sel collection." The dough is a mixture of butter, sugar, powdered sugar, egg yolks, vanilla, and all-purpose flour. You immediately roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment and either freeze or chill the dough until firm. Dorie says you can chill the dough for up to two days so I left mine in the fridge for a full day. When I was ready to bake, I used the ring molds to cut out the cookies and placed the cookies (still in the rings) on a parchment-lined baking sheet. I sprinkled coarse sugar on top of each cookie and baked them until they were golden around the edges. The recipe says it yields 30 cookies but I got 40.
I also decided to make Dorie's "Coconut-Lime Sablés." To make the cookie dough, you work lime zest into sugar until the sugar is moist and fragrant; beat the lime sugar with room temperature butter and salt; add vanilla; mix in all of the dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, cornstarch, ground coriander); and add shredded sweetened coconut. You're supposed to toast half of the coconut but I didn't bother. I rolled out the dough between two sheets of parchment and chilled it for a day.
My coconut-lime cookies were thicker than the vanilla ones (the recipes instruct you to roll the dough for the latter to 1/4-inch thick, and the former to a scant 1/2-inch thick), and they rose around the edges during baking to form a sort of concave cup. While they were hot from the oven, I used a plastic spatula to press down the edges of all of the cookies to create flat pucks. Both Tom and I liked the coconut-lime sablés better than the vanilla ones. They were more interesting all around -- with a bright lime-coconut flavor and a wonderful chewy interior. And the butterscotch crunch was a terrific topping.
I'm a big fan of cookies baked in rings -- I'm a sucker for baked goods with an ultra-neat appearance. I'm definitely looking forward to baking more Beurre & Sel cookies at home!
Recipes: "French Vanilla Sablés" and "Coconut-Lime Sablés" from Dorie's Cookies by Dorie Greenspan.
Previous Posts:
- "Nom Nom Nibs: Nibby Whole-Wheat Sablés," November 26, 2013.
- "The Stuff of Dreams Indeed: Beurre and Sel Jammers," December 25, 2012.
- "Can Chocolate + Salt Change the World?: World Peace Cookies," April 2, 2011.
- "It Must Be Those Darn McDonald's Commercials: the Chocolate Sah-BLAY," July 26, 2009.
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