Espresso Chocolate Sables
Prep time includes inactive time during which the dough is resting.
Servings: 32 cookies
Ingredients
- 1 ½ tablespoons instant espresso
- 1 tablespoon boiling water
- 2 sticks (8 ounces; 226 grams) unsalted butter cut into chunks, at room temperature
- ⅔ cup (80 grams) confectioners’ sugar
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- pinch ground cinnamon
- ¾ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups (272 grams) all-purpose flour
- 4 ounces (113 grams) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
Instructions
- In a small heatproof bowl, dissolve the instant espresso in the boiling water. Set aside to cool to lukewarm.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or using a handheld mixer or your amazing arm strength), beat the butter, sugar, salt, and cinnamon together on medium speed for 2-3 minutes until fluffy, scraping down the bowl as needed.
- Stir in the vanilla and espresso/water liquid on low speed. With the mixer off, add all the flour at once, then pulse the mixer to begin incorporating the flour. After several pulses, mix on low speed until the flour is almost incorporated. Scrape down the bowl, add the chopped bittersweet chocolate, and fold in until evenly distributed.
- Turn the dough out onto a clean countertop or work surface and divide it in half. Shape each half into a disk. Working with one piece of dough at a time, sandwich the dough disk between two pieces of parchment paper, then roll the dough out to a thickness of ¼ inch. Still sandwiched, slide the dough onto a baking sheet and then into the freezer for at least one hour, or the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. (It's fine to stack the rolled out dough halves on top of each other on the baking sheet).
- Preheat the oven to 325ºF with one rack in the center of the oven. Butter or spray two regular muffin tins. Find a 2-inch diameter round cookie cutter or a roughly 2-inch diameter drinking glass for cutting out the cookies, and dust the circumference with flour to avoid stickage..
- Working with one sheet of dough out of the freezer/fridge at a time, peel off the top piece of paper, then cut the dough out into 2-inch rounds using the cutter/glass and place the rounds into the muffin tins. The dough will not quite fill the bottom of the mold -- it will expand as it bakes.
- Save scraps from both dough halves. Rechill these and reroll to salvage as much dough as possible.
- Bake the cookies in the muffin tins for 14 to 17 minutes, or until they feel firm to the touch and have some color. If you are using dark colored muffin tins, they will take less time (14 minutes). Transfer the muffin tins to a cooling rack, leaving the cookies in the tins for 10 minutes, then removing the cookies from the tin interior to cool completely.
- Continue with the remainder of the dough, if you only baked one sheet, always using cool tins.
- This dough can be wrapped well and refrigerated for up to 2 days or frozen up to 2 months. It's fine to cut out cookies and bake the dough directly from the freezer. Once baked, these espresso chocolate sables will keep well-covered at room temperature for about 5 days or in the freezer for up to 2 months.