TWD—Lemon/Orange Sables and Chocolate Toffee Sables

Darn it all if this isn’t the cutest little guy you’ve ever seen!

Snow’s a comin’!  (I write my TWD posts Monday night and as I write this, we’re supposed to get 6-9 inches of snow in the next day.  The kids are praying for a Snow Day Tuesday!  Sam is ready!)

Our Tuesday’s With Dorie recipe this week was chosen by Barbara of Bungalow Barbara and she chose Sables from Baking From My Home to Yours.  They are on pages 131-132.  Barbara will post the recipe, but I think if you don’t have the book, it should be on your holiday wish list!

I made half a batch of these and added the zest of one lemon to the sugar by rubbing it in with my fingers before making the dough.   (Who here LOVES doing that and that smell from the citrus zest, raise your hand!) I rolled the dough into a log as traditionally suggested by Dorie.  I’ve never been very good at getting cookie dough logs to be nice and round.  These turned out rather rustic because of this.  They are a nice, well, buttery cookie with just a hint of lemon (duh).  I thought the lemon could have been stronger.  I did not brush the cookies with egg yolk and roll them in sugar before baking.  Instead I baked them first, then while they were just slightly warm, I rolled them in some sugar that had orange zest in it.  That helped bump up the citrus flavor.  I still think I like traditional shortbread cookies better, but the sables are good.

The end.

Just kidding.  Oh, you say I didn’t tell you about the Chocolate Toffee Sables?  Well, okay.  You didn’t really think I wouldn’t throw some chocolate in there somewhere, did you? 

I made another half batch of the sables.  I took the one cup of flour and removed two tablespoons of flour from the cup, then added two (and about a half) tablespoons of Hershey’s Dark cocoa powder to it.  I also stirred 1/3 cup toffee bits and 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips into the dough.  Instead of forming the dough into a log, I flattened it to somewhere round about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick between some plastic wrap and chilled it.  When the dough was chilled, I took a small round cookie cutter and made circles—perfect circles, instead of my unround, rustic, cut-log cookies. 

After the cookies baked and then cooled slightly, I rolled them in some crushed toffee bits.  Oh yes, I did!

Have you had enough?  Good, there’s more.  There was some dough leftover, you know, after you’ve cut out some cookies—the scraps.  I took those chocolate scraps and pressed that dough into my little 4 inch tart pan.  I baked the lil’ tart.  After it came out of the oven, I generously sprinkled it with more toffee bits.  Once the tart was cool, I put in a layer of caramel (“put in”—that sounds like, “then we put in a patio out back.”)  Anyway, I just happen to have a little caramel in the fridge, so I heated it up so it was pourable and added than on top of the toffee.  Then, because it just wasn’t enough (eye roll), I melted about 1/4 cup milk chocolate with 1  1/2 tablespoons hot cream and poured that on top of the caramel.  And finally—sprinkled a few more toffee bits on top!

THIS—is a good sable!  It’s rich., in case you wondered.

Wanna see the inside?

Pardon this next very poorly lit photo.

My “I’m a spoiled brat” new camera will be here next week!  Thanks, Honey!

Oh, and last week I mentioned wanting to make spanakopita but without feta.  Thanks for all your suggestions.  I made a hasty decision to just whip something up with cream cheese and some grated manchego cheese.  I put some in some folded phyllo dough.  They were pretty good!  I realized that it tasted like spinach dip wrapped in phyllo.  So probably  not really spanakopita, but I used the phyllo and spinach I needed to use up!

Oh, I’ve been bakin’ up a Christmas storm, Friends.  I just haven’t had time to blog it and share it all with you.  I must get to a few more posts this week.  There’s been some yummy stuff going on here that I need to tell you all about!