Toasted Buckwheat and Chopped Chocolate Sablés

This is our third “Sablés” recipe in this cookbook…with one more to go.  I was expecting these to be a hit since the previous two were well liked…and these have chocolate so…you know…so much the better haha! At least that is how I think. 🙂

Shoutout to Mardi, fellow baker with the great idea to use the chocolate chips instead of the chopped chocolate…I loved how her chocolate peeked through instead of coloring the dough, so I followed her lead.

Although these are basically a shortbread cookie, this recipe is unique.  We are asked to toast our buckwheat flour…both are new to me, the toasting and the buckwheat.  I am not sure I got the the fully toasted version of the flour since Dorie tells us not to be tentative.  I feel I went more with the time vs the smell of the toasting flour, even though she cautions us against this…I think because I wasn’t sure what I was trying to smell.  It did take on a slightly darker beige and I did smell it…BUT since no one really could taste the buckwheat, it makes me wonder.  Either I didn’t toast it quite long enough or we all were like the Parisians described in Dorie’s opening that couldn’t decipher the flavor either.

Regardless, these cookies were a total hit…whether picking up on the buckwheat or not haha.  Everyone loved these…one of my friends even likening them to the professional cookies, Kelley’s Kookies which are a gourmet shortbread brand of cookies….well YAY for that.  I will take that as a successful bake for sure. 🙂

Banana-Chocolate Chaussons

 

 

Chaussons are simply what the French call turnovers..they have a passion for them.  We are told in our recipe intro that these are too easy to make to go with the status quo and use apples, we should mix it up and go for a favorite filling of Dorie’s…banana and chocolate.

These look pretty fancy, but surprisingly aren’t too difficult to make.  We are told to be careful and seal the edges with the tines of a fork so the filling won’t seep out.  Some how even being careful, I think all of mine burst.  So discouraging…see for yourself though…seems tight enough right haha!

Since it is once again Lent, I needed to rely heavily on my tasters to see what they think of this latest bake…my son and his girlfriend loved them!…my friend and her family loved them!…all of them enjoyed the different filling, liking that it was different from the traditional apple turnover.  They thought they were delicious.

Even though I love bananas, I was thinking the apple filling sounded perfect…my parents agreed.  Although they really enjoyed the Chaussons, they said the filling wasn’t their favorite…sometimes traditional is ok…a good old fashioned apple turnover I think would have been perfect….next time I think I would do both! 🙂