a whisk and a spoon

TWD BCM Rewind: Vanilla-Bean Sablés (with anise hyssop)

I feel like we make sablés right and left, but I realized I’d never made the most basic Vanilla-Bean Sablés from BCM (even though I’ve wondered many times why it’s “vanilla-bean” with a hyphen). Since we are pretty close to finishing off this book, I thought I should get on it. I should also get on with Babas au Rhum and Cannelés, but they are more challenging than I’m up to right now. Cookies for Rewind Week it is!

I had a little bunch of anise hyssop that I was paying around with on the day I made these, so I worked some buds into the recipe’s sugar to release it’s flavor. I put some more buds on top of the cookies before baking, although they sort of wound up looking like mini broccoli florets. Dorie has these as regular slice-and-bake cookies in this book, but I’ve learned some lessons from Dorie’s Cookies and I popped my dough disks into muffin tins, so they’d be uniformly round. These are what I’d expected— nice, buttery, sandy treats.

For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll to see other Rewind make-ups!

Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Olive Oil and Wine Cookies

These Olive Oil and Wine Cookies are kind of a cousin to the Canistrelli we made a few weeks ago. They hail from the south of France, where olive oil is more widely used than butter. I used a sweet white wine in the dough that was actually homemade by someone I know…please don’t tell, but it’s better to bake with than it is to drink…haha. I don’t think I got the dough shaping down here. They are supposed to have chubby middles and tapered, pinched ends but mine look a little wonky. No matter, they baked up crunchy and made good coffee dunking treats anyway (although TBH, I liked the Canistrelli a bit better for their anise flavor).

For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Canistrelli

These Canistrelli were a nice treat to have around for coffee breaks. They are a Corsican cookie, made with olive oil, white wine and pastis. I’d never had Canistrelli before, but something about them was familiar…not sure, but maybe they are similar to a cookie that my in-laws buy from an Italian-American pastry shop? I actually used ouzo (which I keep around to flame off saganaki, one of my favorite treats) in mine instead of pastis, and it worked great to get that bit of anise flavor. They’re easily mixed together and the soft dough is cut up into little cubes or diamonds. They aren’t too sweet, but the nuggets are coated in sugar before baking, so they get a nice crunchy crust when they bake.

For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!