Now this biscuit recipe is from Le Cordon Blue book Patisserie and Baking Foundations – Classic Recipes. I bought the book a few days ago and decided that this would be my first bake from it.
Other recipes seem to be called Sablés Hollandais, but I have stuck with the name as printed in my book.
The recipe takes a lot of egg yolks, so I have had to freeze the whites, to use later in another recipe. The book gives some very easy to follow instructions, which I have replicated below, omitting the French names for things, where possible, and only giving instructions for the patterns I made.
It is a little fiddly to make these biscuits, having to chill the dough twice and layer it together to make the shapes. I made two shapes, spirals and layers. Of course it is possible to invent any number of different patterns, such as checkerboard. With the excess pastry, I simply worked it together and chilled it, to create a marbling effect for a few extra biscuits.
My efforts turned out very nicely and they taste lovely, so well worth the time it took to make them.
Ingredients:
Vanilla Dough:
- 400g plain flour
- 4g baking powder
- 5 ml vanilla extract
- 200 g Icing sugar(powdered sugar)
- 15 ml water
- 4 egg yolks
- 200g softened butter
Chocolate Dough:
- 400g plain flour
- 4g baking powder
- 5 ml vanilla extract
- 200 g Icing sugar(powdered sugar)
- 15 ml water
- 4 egg yolks
- 200g softened butter
- 20g cocoa powder
Finishing:
- 1 egg for eggwash
Method:
- First make a vanilla dough:
- Sift the flour and baking powder together.
- Place on a work surface and make a large well.
- Int the centre of teh well, add the icing sugar and push it to the sides to reform the well.
- Add the water, egg yolks and vanilla to the centre of the well and mix them together, while gradually incorporating the sugar.
- Add the butter and work until combined.
- Using a pastry scraper gradually incorporate the flour, from the sides of the well, by turning and cutting it into the rest of the ingredients.
- Once the dough forms and just holds together, gather it into a ball and smear it away from yourself with the heel of your palm. Continue this action until the dough is smooth. Then warp it in plastic and chill.
- For the chocolate dough follow the previous instructions, except and you should mix the sifted cocoa powder in directly after the butter is added to the well.
Assembly:
- For a layered biscuit roll the chocolate and vanilla dough into strips and then stack in alternating colours, using egg wash between the layers.
- Wrap the stacked layers in cling film and chill.
- For spirals, roll out layers of the chocolate and vanilla dough. Brush a layer of egg wash on the vanilla dough and then lay the chocolate layer on top.
- Trim the edges of the dough and then roll it up, tighly.
- Wrap in cling film and chill.
- While the dough is chilling pre-heat the oven to 170c
- Remove the dough from the fridge and cut into slices no thicker that 5mm.
- Arrange on a clean baking sheet.
- Bake until the edges just begin to colour.
- Place on a wire rack to cool.
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Hollandais