Christmas sablés or sablés de Noël are traditional Christmas cookies from the Alsace region in France. These Christmas sablés come in the shapes of angels, stars, snowflakes, Christmas trees, snowmen, etc. They can be tied to the Christmas tree as decoration by making a hole on the cookie pre-bake using the end of the chopstick and string with ribbon later. This is a wonderful holiday project for the family to gather, bake together and decorate the Christmas tree. 🎄
This Christmas sablé is unlike any I’ve tried. It’s rich and savory thanks to the use of some ground almonds. Definitely feels like a piece of heaven as Jacquy Pfeiffer’s (pastry chef & for which this recipe is adapted) mom experienced when she was little.
Christmas sablés or sablés de Noël ready to be gobbled up. 🤤❄️☃️❤️🎄🎅🤤 In fact I already did.
Let’s make sablés de Noël!
For the recipe, scroll further down.
Christmas sablés dry ingredients (all sifted): Organic all-purpose flour, organic ground almond and organic Ceylon cinnamon powder. I used everything organic here. Give them a mix.
In the mixing bowl: Butter, organic unrefined cane sugar, vanilla extract and sea salt.
Christmas sablés dough ready to go into the fridge. This dough can also be frozen. I used a glass container with its own cover to store the dough in the fridge and rested the dough overnight. I don’t use cling film anymore.
These are some of the Christmas-themed cookie cutters that I used. The flour in the same bowl is used to sprinkle on the work surface to prevent the dough from sticking.
If the cookies do stick when you’re disengaging them, use a knife to help ‘peel’ them off the work surface.
These are pre-baked with the first layer of egg wash. Aren’t they lovely?
I made the mistake of baking the small and large cookies together which needs different baking times. Remember to bake the same size cookie together or you can remove the smaller baked cookies from the oven first and continue baking the larger size cookies.
It definitely feels like Christmas! ☃️ Christmas sablés or sablés de Noël is savory, buttery and crunchy with a perfumey vanilla fragrance and a very light hint of cinnamon. Sweetness is just right for me.
Bake these for yourself and as a gift to your families and friends. Feel free to adapt this recipe into other flavors like orange, ginger or coffee.
Christmas Sablés – Sablés De Noël
Adapted from The Art Of French Pastry by Jacquy Pfeiffer
Yields about 35 pieces (Just a rough guide as yield depends on the cookie cutters used)
150g organic all-purpose flour, sifted
50g organic ground almond, sifted
1g organic Ceylon cinnamon powder, sifted
100g butter, French style 82% fat
75g granulated sugar (I used 80g organic unrefined cane sugar; this sugar is less sweet, hence I added 5g more)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract/paste
1.5g sea salt
20g whole egg (less than an egg), beaten
Egg wash:
25g whole egg
2.5g whole milk or heavy cream
small pinch of sea salt
Method:
1. Place sifted all-purpose flour, ground almond and Ceylon cinnamon powder in a bowl. Mix to combine.
2. Place butter, sugar, vanilla and sea salt in a mixing bowl. Beat for 2 minutes on medium speed. I used a Danish dough whisk for this recipe. If using a dough whisk, bring everything nearly together. The rest of the steps are similar to if using a tabletop mixer or handheld mixer.
3. Add the egg and mix for another 2 minutes. Remember to scrape the bottom of the bowl so that all ingredients are mixed together.
4. Add the sifted dry ingredients (flour, ground almond & cinnamon powder) and mix until just come together. Scrape the bottom and side of the bowl and paddle and beat again until the dough is amalgamated.
5. Place the dough in a glass bowl/container and flatten it. Cover with its own cover or a plate. Rest the dough in the fridge for at least 2 hours or preferably overnight.
6. Preheat the oven to 160oC and position the oven rack in the middle.
7. To roll out the dough and shape the cookie, first, remove half of the dough from the fridge. Allow it to sit at room temperature for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, lightly sprinkle some flour on your work surface.
8. Roll out the dough to 5mm thickness. Use Christmas-themed cookie cutters of your choice and cut the dough into shapes. Place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Repeat until all the dough has been used up.
9. Lightly brush the tops of the cookies with egg wash. Make sure that the egg wash doesn’t drip to the sides of the cookies. Brush the cookies with a second layer of egg wash 10 minutes later.
10. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, turning the tray at halfway mark, until golden brown throughout. I baked mine at 20 minutes. It’s best to bake the same size cookies together as you will underbake and overbake them if you baked various sizes of cookies together.
11. Let the cookies rest on the baking tray for 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.
12. Store the Christmas sablés in an airtight container/tin. The cookies can keep for a month or more.
Happy baking.
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