This chocolate sablé sprinkled with pink peppercorns and sea salt is delicate in texture, and has a deep, chocolaty taste. You’ll fall in love as soon as you take your first bite, but then it suddenly bites you back with the zing of a pink peppercorn. After that, it sprinkles coarse sea salt in your wound. Finally, and when you’re feeling like you just don’t want this cookie in your life after all, it leans over and gives you a sweet kiss and whispers in your ear that all the flavors work together and everything is going to be alright. So you eat another, and ride the roller coaster once again.
By the way, that was my 2018 in a nut shell cookie.
I adapted this recipe from Cook’s Illustrated Baking Book, and was also inspired by Johnny Iuzzini’s vanilla sablés from his book Sugar Rush. Sablés are buttery rich, sandy textured, French cookies. These chocolate sablés are a must try. The combination of flavors works surprisingly well.
First, beat cold butter, sugar, and salt until it forms a thick paste.
Next, and hear me out on this part, strain hard boiled egg yolks through a fine mesh sieve into the butter mixture, and mix until incorporated. This enables a perfectly sandy texture, which is what you want from a sablé. If you were to use an uncooked egg yolk it would make a more smoother textured cookie.
Here’s the science: It all comes down to water. A raw egg yolk will dissolve the sugar crystals because its water content is able to escape when baked. A cooked egg yolk retains its water, so the sugar crystals are not dissolved. Undissolved sugar crystals create a sandier, and more tender baked good.
Add flour, and cocoa powder, and a bit of instant espresso powder, and mix until combined. It will be crumbly. Don’t let that discourage you.
Just keep rolling the dough out and it will become more manageable.
Pink peppercorns are not as spicy, and have a slightly sweeter taste than their black counterparts. Still, there is a bit of a bite to them. They are peppercorns after all.
Sprinkle pink peppercorns, sea salt, and sugar (to balance out the madness) on top of every sablé. Bake in a 350 degree F. oven for 10 minutes. Enjoy!
- 1/3 cup plus 1 TBS (79 g) Sugar
- ¼ tsp. Salt
- 10 TBS (142 g) Unsalted Butter, cold and cut into ¼ inch pieces
- 2 Large Hard Boiled Egg Yolks (*see below), press yolk through a fine mesh strainer into a small bowl
- 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
- 1 and 1/3 cup (167 g) All-Purpose Flour
- ¼ cup (30 g) Dutch-Processed Cocoa
- 1 tsp. Instant Espresso Powder
- 1 Large Egg lightly beaten with 1 tsp. of Water
- 2 TBS Pink Peppercorns, crushed
- 2 TBS Turbinado Sugar
- 2 TBS Coarse Sea Salt
- In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa, and espresso powder. Set aside.
- In a bowl connected to a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix the sugar and salt until combined. Add the cold butter pieces, and beat until it becomes a smooth, thick paste (about 5 minutes). Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add the strained yolk and vanilla extract, and mix until fully combined.
- On low speed, slowly pour in the flour mixture, and mix until combined. The dough will be very dry. Do not fear! As best you can wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 12 hours or overnight.
- Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside. Take the crumbly dough out of the plastic wrap and dump it on a clean surface. Press, and knead the dough together a little. It will still be crumbly. Place a piece of parchment over top the dough, and with a rolling pin begin to roll it out to ½-inch thick. Most of the dough will be crumbly, but the middle should be cookie-cuttable. If not, knead the dough a little more, and then roll it out again. Cut out what you can using a 2-inch fluted, round cookie cutter. With a thin spatula, gently lift the cut out rounds and place on the prepared baking sheet. Be sure to keep the pieces 1 inch apart. Repeat. As you continue to work with the dough it will become easier and easier to manage.
- Once the baking sheets are full of cut out rounds place one sheet in the freezer and one in the refrigerator (if you can fit both sheets in the freezer then do that instead). Let them chill for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Take the baking sheet out of the freezer. Using a pastry brush, brush each round with the beaten egg mixture. Then sprinkle about 1/8 teaspoon each of the turbinado sugar, the coarse sea salt, and the crushed peppercorns. Bake for 10 minutes, rotating half way through.
- While the first baking sheet of cookies are baking, remove the 2nd sheet from the refrigerator and place in the freezer.
- Cool the cookies on a wire rack. Repeat process with 2nd baking sheet. Enjoy!
- *To boil an egg: Place the eggs in a medium-sized sauce pan, and cover them by 1-inch with cold water. Place saucepan over medium heat. When water begins to bowl, remove saucepan from heat, cover it, and set aside for 10 minutes. Fill a bowl with ice water. Using a slotted spoon, place the eggs in the ice water. Let sit for 5 minutes.
- Standing mixer with bowl and paddle attachment
- Rubber spatula
- Fine mesh strainer
- Pastry brush
- Parchment paper
- 2 large baking sheets
- Rolling pin
- 2-inch fluted round cookie cutter
