Friday, April 5, 2013

FFwD: Sablés aux Olives Noires Pierre Hermé - Pierre Hermé´s Black Olive Sablés


Today we are baking Pierre Hermé´s Black Olive Sablés - Sablés aux Olives Noires Pierre Hermé for the French Fridays with Dorie group.




This unusual appetizer-style savory cookie consists of but a few ingredients namely one hard-boiled egg yolk (jaune d´oeuf bouilli), plain flour (farine), potato starch (fécule de pommes des terres), 215 grams unsalted butter (beurre non salé), some fruity olive oil (huile d´olive au fruité vert), powdered sugar (sucre glace) and oil-cured black olives (olives noires á l´huile).




I am no stranger to adding grated or mashed hard-boiled egg yolks to sweet or savory cookie and cracker doughs. I have prepared many absolutely delicious butter cookies (Butterkekse), spritz cookies (Spritzgebäck) and cheese crackers (Käsegebäck) with this traditional ingredient and all I can say is that the dough always turns out wonderful and very tender.




The dough for these fabulous sablés came together like a charm, it rolled out beautifully after only a two-hour chill in the fridge (not overnight) and the cookies held their shape when baked. And best of all, the kids devoured them! So glad to have some open-minded and adventurous taste testers at home. The cookies had a fabulous texture when baked, they were light and tender. And they tasted sweet yet salty from the black olives. Delightful!




This very French savory shortbread-style cookie would be perfect whenever you have friends coming for supper, as not only is it perfect with drinks, but it can be made in advance. You could make the dough, wrap it well and then leave it in the fridge for up to three days before slicing and baking. All you have to do when guests arrive is to remember to let the dough sit out on a kitchen counter just long enough to get the fridge-chill off the dough before slicing or cutting into different shapes and baking.

To see what the other members of the French Fridays with Dorie group thought of these delicious savory bites, please do click here.




44 comments:

  1. Love that your kids enjoyed these…but then why wouldn’t they love them! They were perfectly delicious!! I could see using this dough as a base for many additions. Maybe chocolate chips, blueberries, raisins or even some rosemary! Love how beautiful yours look…pretty shapes! Have a wonderful weekend, Andrea!

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    1. Kathy, so glad that you enjoyed this savory cookie so much but I think I will keep the additions to this dough savory rather than sweet the next time I bake them. Herbs such as rosemary or thyme or sun-dried and oil-cured tomatoes would be wonderful.

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  2. I'll have to give these a try - they look delicious. I love that you wrote on the egg!

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    1. Cathleen, I know how much you enjoyed the cheesze it crackers that you baked for Oscar night and I am sure that you would love to bake and eat these sablés as well.

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  3. Even though the ingredients seem strange, they really worked well together. We truly enjoyed them and I'm glad to see that
    the kids didn't turn away as a lot of children do today. The shape of your sablés are very nice.

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    1. Thank you, Nana, I just chose this shape for the cablés because the grated egg yolk in the dough reminded me of the Linzer cut-out cookies that I oftne like to bake. And yes, I really enjoy having those adventurous young taste testers at home.

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  4. Yours are beautiful, Andrea! My two boys with more adventurous palates weren't around to try these, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked them :)

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    1. Thank you, Liz, I am always happy to have taste testers around it just makes me a happy person when I can share the results of my baking/cooking with friends and family!

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  5. I love that you cut your sables into elegant shapes! These were so unusual, but also delicious. You are lucky to have such open-minded children. They enjoy so many treats that way, rather than saying they won't try. We really enjoyed these also. I'm glad that I have two more rolls in the fridge for instant gratification. Have a wonderful weekend, Andrea.

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    1. Betsy, I have some many nice cookies cutters and I think that I never use them enough, so any chance I get to pull them out and use them makes me happy.

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  6. Beautiful job. Your cookies look delicious.

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  7. The shape of your cookies is the nicest of them all! Great job Andrea! They will be made many more times in my kitchen, with different flavors. I found them amazing. Have a great weekend my friend!

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    1. Paula, thank you - these savory black olive sablés were indeed quite different from the usual savory shortbread - sweet and salty, an intriguing combination.

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  8. Wow, what a yummy treat these are and so unique, I'll have to try them for the next Café celebration! :) Love the photos!

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    1. Thank you, Chris, if and when you get a chance to bake these black olive sablés, you will notice that this is such an easy dough to work with and that these little treats are quite the crowd pleaser - a bit surprising but true.

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  9. The contrast within these cookies is just amazing. And so perfect! I was a little worried how the husband and I would like them, but now I can't stop eating them! Definitely a new favorite treat. Yours are so adorable! And tasty-looking. ;)

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    1. Sara, I am glad that you and your husband enjoyed these sweet and savory cookies so much - they were indeed surprisingly good!

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  10. What a pleasure to have found your site. It is wonderful. I came to you from Sis Boom Blog!

    These sables sound absolutely wonderful. The texture sounds perfect, and that sweet ans salty combination is always a hit. I am convinced I must try them. Thank you for the encouragement, and for all the great reading and cooking here! Your opening photo is inspired! Comlimenti!

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    1. Mille grazie for your lovely compliments! How wondeful that you are enjoying my blog and how kind of you that you took the time to visit and leave your kind comments!

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  11. I've never added egg yolk to a cookie dough, but I can see where it would make an incredibly tender cookie.

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    1. Kristin, indeed you are right - adding boiled and grated or mashed egg yolks make for a very tender cookie dough. The Austrian butter cookies are just another example of a wonderful recipe with that unique ingredient.

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  12. I love your whimsical photos for these cookies. I also think your rolled out cookies are very pretty. It's good to know they hold a shape so well.

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    1. Teresa, thank you, these pictures were fun to "style" and meant to be a bit different from the ususal cracker/olive picttures.

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  13. Great post! Roll and bake, must try this sometime. Loved the title written on the egg.

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    1. Thank you, Heidi, nice to see that you are participating in the FFwD group again.

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  14. This really is an unusual recipe! I've never heard of using a hard-boiled egg in baking, but why not? Sounds like they were a hit.

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    1. Beth, thank you for the comment - hard boiled eggs are traditionally used in European baking - not many bakers do this anymore but there are quite a numeber of delightful recipes out there that include that ingredient.

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  15. Oh, that opening photo was so cute and clever. Sometimes you give us the names of products and recipe ingredients in German and sometimes in English and sometimes in French. I'd certainly admire Europeans for being able to jump all over the map with their language skills. Andrea, do you know what the egg yolk brings to the Austrian shortbread/butter cookie? (I will check back for your answer.) Okay, I just read your reply to Mother Rimmy. I'm not surprised that your eager little taste testers loved these cookies. I am just a day or two from getting settled and then will opo off some correspondence to them. Afraid the postcards got lost in international mails.

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    1. Mary, sometimes I have the urge to use at least some of the language skills that I learned a while back, even if it is just bits and pieces and for this post, I just felt that I wanted to translate the ingredients into French because this recipe has French just "written all over it". And I do hope that my blog has at least a bit of an "international touch" and appeals to people who speak different languages. As far as those grated hard boiled egg yolks are concerned, they do in fact add tenderness to the doughs that they are used in. Use not only for butter cookies but also for spritz cookies or cheese crackers - I added that info to my post, thanks for asking! One of the cooks whose recipes I really enjoy always mashes the egg yolks with a fork and that´s what I do too instead of bothering with the grating, much easier and less messy and makes for a finer yolk.

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  16. What a fun, whimsical way to display these.

    This was the first time I had worked with egg yolk in my dough - I was intrigued to hear that it added to the tenderness of the dough.

    It is really lovely that your little ones are as adventurous as they are with their eating :-)

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    1. Cher, thank you - those adventurous eaters of mine make me happy - mind you, they will certainly not eat everything I put in front of them but they try to have an open mind about most foods and that is what I really like.

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  17. What lovely cookies!!! Looking forward to your posts!!!

    Mr. & Mrs. P
    www.cristyandmichael.blogspot.com

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    1. These were indeed nice savory cookies, we liked them quite a bit, the combination of savory and sweet is intriguing. - Thank you very much for visting my blog - looking forward to following your blog posts as well.

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  18. Hi Andrea! It's actually my first time to learn about adding "hard-boiled" egg yolks in cookies and I thought it's interesting! Of course I have seen egg yolks in dough but hard boiled! These sables look delicious. You made all the baked goods so easy (probably it is easy - without fear of baking haha!) and delicious!! :)

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    1. Nami, thanks so much, hard boiled egg yolks are a well known but not common ingredient in EU recipes. You can find a few wonderful recipes and it is certainly worth trying them out.

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  19. These are such a unique treat! I never would have thought to add a hard boiled egg to any baked good. I can't wait to give this a try! And Ryan adores olives, so I know these would be a favorite. Thank you for sharing!

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    1. Monet, this recipe is a bit different and was such a crowd pleaser at our house, I was actually surprised at well they were received but all my adventurous taste testers agreed on these and would not stop munching on them.

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  20. I love, love the shape of your sables, Andrea! For me the surprising ingredient was the addition of the hard boil egg yolk. I'm glad that they were enjoyed by all!

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    1. Thank you Elaine, the recipe for these sweet and savory cookies was surprising and delicious and within minutes they were all eaten up - so much for lovingly cutting them into fancy shapes.

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  21. It's so cool that your kids enjoyed these as well. They must be such a pleasure to cook for. This was my first time adding hard boiled egg yolk to cookie dough, and I was amazed by how well it worked. I'm glad to know there are more similar cookie recipes out there.

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    1. Jora, yes, I guess we are pretty lucky as far as what the children like to eat are concerned - not much that they are not willing to try and I am grateful for it. But I was still surprised at how much they actually enjoyed these black olive sablés - these things never cease to amaze me.

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  22. Your sables are so pretty...the shape indicates they are not your average cookie. I think the sweet and salty cookie would be perfect with a glass of wine before a meal.

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    1. Karen, thank you - I agree with you, these sweet and savory cookies would be perfect with a lovely glass of mine before a meal.

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