My friend, Colette, was coming to dinner the other night so I thought I would make some little sablés for afters.  Making sablés is not for the short tempered.  The dough is a rich pâte sablée and is extremely fragile and difficult to handle.  

This basic pâte sablée recipe is based on the recipe in Michel Roux’ pastry.  

Ingredients:

• 250g flour
• 200g unsalted butter cut into cubes
• 100g icing sugar, sifted
• 2 egg yokes
• pinch of salt
• 2 tbs milk

1. Pulse flour, icing sugar and salt in a food processor.
2. Add egg yokes and pulse until just combined.
3. Add just enough milk to bring dough together.
4. Wrap dough in Glad Wrap and place in fridge for at least 30 minutes.
5. Roll out dough between 2 sheets of baking paper.
6. Cut out base and lids of biscuits (this is easier said than done). 
7. Place the bases on a tray lined with baking paper. Moisten them lightly with water and place the lids on top.
8. Put a parfait spoon of jam into the cut out.
9. Preheat oven to 170˚ Celsius and bake for 10 minutes or until slightly coloured. 

 I found it easier to roll out small portions of the dough at a time, rather than try to roll out all at once. 

You could use a scone cutter for both the tops and base and then use a smaller cutter to cut out the centre or you could get yourself this fancy biscuit cutter set.  It cuts the base and then, when you want to cut the lids, you insert one of the interchangeable centres.  It cuts the lids and the hole at the same time.     

All I can say is that the dough is extremely fragile – do your best.

When Colette arrived, I was still in a bit of a mess as it took me much longer than I anticipated to cut out the biscuits.  I showed her the sablés to explain my lack of progress towards dinner.  She exclaimed, ‘They are Jammie Dodgers’.  Not being of English descent like her, I had never heard of Jammie Dodgers.  I was given a detailed run down on the role they played in her childhood. 

My sablés passed the Jammie Dodgers taste test.