Short but sweet...and buttery

Look, it's not a 12 Days of Cookies post!  And yet, it's still about cookies.  =)  Specifically, this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Sablés.  It was picked by Barbara of Bungalow Barbara.  I've actually baked these before--I made the lemon version as my 2008 Taste of Yellow contribution, and decorated the edges with yellow sugar.  This time, I wanted to go with something more traditional for the holidays.

I did actually buy some European-style butter for these, since it's the featured ingredient.  Plus I knew I would use the rest with all the cookie baking I've been doing.  For flavoring, I went with vanilla--bean, not extract.  I split one of my Tahitian vanilla beans and scraped out the seeds.  I rubbed them into the granulated sugar for the recipe so they would be more evenly dispersed in the dough.  Other than that, I pretty much followed the recipe as written.  As Dorie mentions in the book, I used paper towel tubes to keep the logs of dough round while they were chilling.  For the decoration, I used a combination of red, green and white sparkling sugar.  I was lazy and didn't use an egg wash to glue the sugar to the logs--I just pressed the sugar into the outside of the dough.  I used my serrated knife to slice the log into rounds, and baked them for 20 minutes at 350 degrees F.

The verdict?  Exactly what I expected--buttery and not too sweet, with a crumbly, melt-in-your-mouth texture.  These are really wonderful cookies--great for the holidays or any other time.  Brianna and Gillian were eager to have them for dessert tonight, which is always a good sign. =)  I'll definitely be making them again, and am looking forward to trying more variations.  In fact, I still have one log of dough in the fridge, so I may try something else on the outsides of that one.

Want to try these yourself?  Head over to Barbara's blog for the recipe.  And while you're there, check out some of the awesome cakes she bakes and all the great recipe notes that she shares.  And don't forget to visit the rest of the TWD bakers to see what they did with this week's recipe!