TWD: Sables

Every Christmas, David and I look forward to those blue tins of Royal Dansk butter cookies. It seems like someone always has one of those tins, and he and I love them! I always go for the pretzel-shaped ones with the sugar crystals on them, but they all taste the same. When I pulled these cookies out of the oven, David said, "They look like those Christmas cookies in the blue tin!" And they do. Only they taste even better!
Bungalow Barbara chose this week's TWD recipe...Sables! They're sandy, buttery shortbread cookies, and they're delicious! This week's recipe can be found on Barbara's blog, or in Baking: From My Home to Yours on pages 131-133. Dorie offers several variations on the basic sable recipe, and I chose to make the spice sables, since we're so close to the holidays. They're full of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg...some of my favorite flavors!

It's important to have a light hand when mixing the dough, so that you can keep the sandy, tender texture that's characteristic of sables. I tend to have a heavy hand when mixing, so I purposely tried to work the dough less. And this time, I think maybe I didn't work the dough enough, because some of my cookies fell apart. But they still tasted great! Isn't the sugar on the outside pretty? Some of the TWDers rolled their cookies in pretty sanding sugar, but I just used regular ol' turbinado sugar. Still a very pretty effect!

These cookies would be perfect if you're going to a cookie exchange, or if you plan to give some food gifts to friends and family. Visit Bungalow Barbara for the recipe, variations, and a couple of tips on how to get perfectly round logs of dough. Happy baking!