and that's how the French do it... Sablés

True, we've been more 'away' than 'available' these past few months, and all for good reason. It's been a crazy whirlwind of work, precious precious family time, real life drama (in small doses, thank God!), travel (yes, we finally stayed at The Leela, Kovalam, amongst other things!!! You'd think 'Mindblowing' would suffice to descibe the place , but no... it's awesome and mindblowing stuff :D...), occassional baking to keep me going and the exhaustion that resulted from all the mentioned activities.

I got to spend time with Ethan and dig this: the fellow's a charmer all the way. This is what he looks like now and the entire family assembled from different parts of the world and had a great time at home. Ethan's a natural with dogs (how proud am i of my 2 year old nephew!) and Oreo's a natural with kids (how proud am i of my baby girl!) The two had so much fun together not to mention us who were looking on and laughing at their funny games. My brother clicks super neat pics here and got to travel quite a bit and capture Kerala resplendent in its Monsoon glory (sigh! i miss home!)

Amidst all this, we were in B'lor for non-stick' birthday and did what we do best in B'lor: chill and eat our hearts out (they have SO fricking many options and this time, Sunny's in Indira Nagar was the favourite for food with Toit being the fav for hangout/dance/music on a Sunday night). We got to spend time with family and also indulged in some dog therapy. :) Cousins Shane and Shrey are now parents to Buffy a.k.a Buffster. He's a 7 months lab, adorable, smart and a sweetheart.

Non stick on returning from his trip abroad got me the popular, very familiar, round, blue tinned Danish Butter Cookies. All of us who have been abroad or had people coming from abroad are only too familiar with these buttery, slightly salty, sugar coated, melt-in-mouth cookies. These are one of the things we kids grew up on and my favourite always used to be the one that was piped out in pre

tty twirls. The tin non-stick got finished in no time (deja-vu??) and the craving for more remained.

That is when the Hestia intervened and i saw Look Who's Cooking Too's post on Sablés which are nothing but the butter cookies I have always wished i had a secret, bottom-less stash of. Is this the best or what? Me being me, i did my research to find out more. They are called sablés 'cos they are sandy (sable in french for sand), crumbly, delicate and originated in Normandy, France. Yet another thing i'm indebted to you guys for!

It's a breeze to make and here' how we go about it (adapted from Look Who's Cooking Too)

Things you will need:

-115 g All purpose flour

-90 g unsalted butter at room temperature

-1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

-1 teaspoon salt

-45 g powdered sugar

-1 egg white (of a fairly small egg) and

-Baking tray lined with baking paper

The Procedure

- Preheat the oven to 150 C

- In a bowl, whisk the butter until smooth and creamy

- In another bowl, whisk the flour and salt and keep aside.

- Add the sugar to the butter and continue to whisk till smooth creamy again

- Add in the egg white to this mix and whisk till it looks homogenous. The mix may appear to curdle, but do not worry, whisk it and make sure it is thoroughly mixed

- Add the vanilla extract and yes, you guessed it right, whisk

- Add the flour mix to the butter egg white mix and continue to mix it in till thoroughly combined.

Scoop it into the piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe onto the prepared baking tray with a spacing of an inch in between.

OR if u wish to devour shapes, halve the mix into two, wrap them each in clingfilm and  flatten it out slightly and refrigerate for at least an hour (that's keeping the humidity in Chennai in mind) or half an hour for not-so-humid lucky places.

Take a disc at a time out of the refrigerator, roll it out to .4 cm thickness while still wrapped in film and use a cookie cutter of your choice.

Bake at 150 C for 13 minutes. Check on them halfway through and rotate the baking tray if need be. et Voilà! you have your sablés ready! Get ready to get hooked!