These are such a cute and tasty present to make for Easter (I love the lingering sweet and crunchy coconut bits after you have munched on the cookies), and great to bake with kids as they are an easy mix-all affair. That is, if you keep a tight control over the highly volatile icing sugar. Unfortunately, I didn't. Before I could scream stop, Jules' enthusiastic shaking had everybody's sinuses sugar-crusted in a matter of seconds. When will I learn...
Coconut sablés with a dark chocolate coating
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Recipe by: Pierre Hermé, Le Larousse des Desserts Busy:15 min, Total prep time: 2h30 min (2 hours chilling time) Serves: makes about 20 cookies |
Place the butter in a mixing bowl and soften with a fork if needed. Add the icing sugar, salt, almonds, coconut and half a beaten egg, mixing well in between each ingredient.
Add the flour last and knead the dough for 30 seconds. Roll into a ball (don't worry if it is a bit sticky) and place in the fridge for 2 hours, covered.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
Roll the dough onto a floured surface until it is about 3 to 4 mm thick. Cut it out with cookie cutters of 4 to 5 cm diameter. Paste the trimmings together to make more cuttings and use all the dough.
Line the oven tray with baking paper and place the cookies on top. If not adding the chocolate topping or any icing, brush the tops of the cookies with a beaten egg, this will make them shiny.
Cook for about 8 minutes, until the cookies start to ligthly brown. Take out of the oven and let cool for 2 minutes on the tray before transferring them to a grid to cool completely.
For the chocolate coating:
There are two ways to do this. The easy way is to melt the chocolate in a bowl over gently boiling water. Take it off the heat, wait a few minutes to allow it to thicken a bit and dip one side of the cookies into the melted chocolate. Allow the excess chocolate to drip back into the bowl and place the cookie, chocolate face up, on a plate until the chocolate dries up completely. With this process the chocolate will have a mat and softer finish.
The second way is to temper the chocolate (warm it up to a certain temperature, cool it down, and warm up again), a precise process that will yield a hard and shiny chocolate coating, great for stacking cookies. Check out how to temper chocolate in my kitchen tips section.
Last, if you are making these cookies for kids, be decadent: chop Smarties into 2-3 mm chunks and stick those onto the chocolate coating while it is still warm and soft. Success guaranteed!! (tested at home!)
Make the cookies:
Place the butter in a mixing bowl and soften with a fork if needed. Add the icing sugar, salt, almonds, coconut and half a beaten egg, mixing well in between each ingredient.
Add the flour last and knead the dough for 30 seconds. Roll into a ball (don’t worry if it is a bit sticky) and place in the fridge for 2 hours, covered.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
Roll the dough onto a floured surface until it is about 3 to 4 mm thick. Cut it out with cookie cutters of 4 to 5 cm diameter. Paste the trimmings together to make more cuttings and use all the dough.
Line the oven tray with baking paper and place the cookies on top. If not adding the chocolate topping or any icing, brush the tops of the cookies with a beaten egg, this will make them shiny.
Cook for about 8 minutes, until the cookies start to ligthly brown. Take out of the oven and let cool for 2 minutes on the tray before transferring them to a grid to cool completely.
For the chocolate coating:
There are two ways to do this. The easy way is to melt the chocolate in a bowl over gently boiling water. Take it off the heat, wait a few minutes to allow it to thicken a bit and dip one side of the cookies into the melted chocolate. Allow the excess chocolate to drip back into the bowl and place the cookie, chocolate face up, on a plate until the chocolate dries up completely. With this process the chocolate will have a mat and softer finish.
The second way is to temper the chocolate (warm it up to a certain temperature, cool it down, and warm up again), a precise process that will yield a hard and shiny chocolate coating, great for stacking cookies. Check out how to temper chocolate in my kitchen tips section.
Last, if you are making these cookies for kids, be decadent: chop Smarties into 2-3 mm chunks and stick those onto the chocolate coating while it is still warm and soft. Success guaranteed!! (tested at home!)
Ingredients
160 g unsalted butter at room temperature
75 g icing sugar
2 pinches salt
40 g ground almonds
40 g coconut flakes
2 eggs
160g flour
160 g unsalted butter at room temperature
75 g icing sugar
2 pinches salt
40 g ground almonds
40 g coconut flakes
2 eggs
160g flour
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2 Comments to “Coconut sablĂ©s with a dark chocolate coating”
April 1st, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Dear Anne-Laure,
Re coconut sables
When you call for coconut flakes, do you mean dessicated coconut, shredded sweetened coconut or the jumbo flakes of coconut available from Holland and Barrett? I assume dessicated coconut as that’s the most freely available in the UK.
Regards,
Margarida
April 2nd, 2010 at 9:56 am
Hi Margarida,
You are right, use dessicated coconut flakes. Let me know how you get on! AL x