These “intensely” chocolate sables are the ultimate “don’t judge a book by its cover” experience. These cookies are like being punched in the face with rich, bittersweet dark chocolate. I felt like I had to lead with that.
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These dark chocolate sables bring such an intense flavor and it kind of explodes when you take a bite. In my opinion this is the best chocolate cookie recipe, FULL STOP. Yes, it’s unorthodox, but trust me on this.
Now, if you prefer super sweet milk chocolate type cookies, then I’ll tell you upfront that these are not the ones for you. But if you gravitate toward rich, dark, complex, bittersweet chocolate flavors that aren’t sickly sweet…then keep reading!
So a few notes about the dough for these dark chocolate sables…I have to level with you, the dough is not the easiest to work with. Rolling was HARD because the dough kept coming apart.
But that’s okay! They still turned out delicious and looked fine. I’ve found that chilling it too long made it hard to work with, and I tend to use my palms quite a bit (for warmth to make the dough more pliable, which is counterintuitive with dough, I know).
Rather than rolling it like bread dough, I made very small, light movements with the rolling pin, kind of little wiggles. My bamboo rolling pin was perfect, and then my scraper tool was critical for picking up the cut-out dough.
First, we chocolate. It’s important to use a high-quality one, and fairly dark…headed toward bittersweet. I’ve found that a 60-75% range of cocoa is best, and I’ve used Valrhona, Guittard, Ghiradelli, and similar.
Break the chocolate bar into pieces and use a food processor to grind the chocolate until it’s in very fine bits, almost like powder.
Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking soda together onto a piece of parchment paper (or into a bowl) and set aside. Note, I almost always skip sifting but in this case you really don’t want lumps in your cocoa powder. You can save the parchment paper to bake the cookies on.
In a stand mixer (or with an electric mixer), cream the butter, sugar, and salt together until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolk and vanilla, beating until combined, then scraping down sides.
Finally, add the sifted dry ingredients and grated chocolate, and mix until just combined. It will be a pretty crumbly dough, just go with it and trust the process, but you may need to give it a few more pulses with your mixer to get it to moisten and come together a bit.
Lay out some plastic wrap and scrape the dough onto it. Use your hands to bring it together into one lump (I flatten it with my hands to make the rolling easier).
Wrap it up and chill it in the fridge until just firm, about 20 minutes. You don’t want it to get fully hard, because it gets harder to roll out.
Preheat your oven to 350 F. On a very lightly floured surface, roll the dough out gently. It takes some patience as the dough will still be quite crumbly.
I used little wiggles with gentle pressure, only try to slightly flatten it each roll. You want them fairly thin so they have a crispness to them, like 1/4-inch thick?
Line baking sheets with parchment paper and cut the dough into desired shapes. You’ll have to re-roll the dough a few times as you cut pieces out, to try and use up as much as possible.
Use something very thin (I use my multi-purpose scraper tool) to gently transfer them to a parchment-covered baking sheet. Space them apart slightly as they will spread a tiny bit.
If desired, sprinkle decoratively with the raw sugar. I haven’t found it making a big difference one way or the other in the final cookies.
Bake for 8 to 11 minutes, and then leave the cookies on the baking sheet for a few minutes once they come out of the oven before carefully transferring them to cooling racks.
This is because they’re fragile until they cool.
I got some new cookie cutters in super fun shapes for the second time I made these…the dinosaur and candy are my faves!
You can store the cookies in an airtight container for up to two weeks, or in the freezer indefinitely (they’ll be a little less crisp when you thaw them, but otherwise heavenly).
They make a perfect Sunday afternoon treat with a hot cup of tea (or as Smitten says, a random weekday 4pm snack as well).
I get about 30 cookies out of this recipe, though it will depend on the size of your cookie cutters. One thing I’ve found that I love is freezing some of these and pulling them out one by one…they thaw easily and the texture is still great!
A few important notes:
- I strongly recommend only using Dutch-process cocoa, not regular cocoa powder.
- For the chocolate, you should be somewhere between 60-75% cocoa. I’ve used a 73% Valrhona and a 63% and a 70% Guittard and they’ve all been great.
- If you’d like a bittersweet chocolate cookie, use the 1/2 cup amount of sugar (this is what I do). If you’d like a slightly sweeter cookie, use the 2/3 cup.
Other crave-able cookies you’ll love:
- Salted Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies
- No-Bake Cookies a.k.a. Haystacks
- Salted Peanut Butter Chocolate Shortbread Cookies
- Best Soft Molasses Cookies Ever
- Whole Wheat Cranberry Pistachio Orange Shortbread (egg-free)
- Triple Dark Chocolate Cookies
- Jam Diagonals
- The Absolute Best, Easiest Classic Shortbread (Plain or Flavored)
Original recipe from Smitten Kitchen, with some notes of my own
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Intensely Amazing Dark Chocolate Sable Cookies
These intensely dark chocolate sables are my new obsession. If you love dark, complex, rich (but not too sweet) chocolate cookies, these are the best chocolate cookie recipe around!
Ingredients
- 1 cup (125 grams) of all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup (30 grams) of Dutch-process cocoa powder (critical, NOT regular cocoa powder)
- 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1/2 cup (1 stick, 4 ounces or 115 grams) of unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/2 to 2/3 cup (100 to 135 grams) of granulated sugar (see notes)
- 1/4 teaspoon of fine sea salt
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 3 1/2 ounces (100 grams) of QUALITY semi- or bittersweet chocolate, grated or finely chopped until almost powdery in a food processor (see notes)
- Optional: Coarse raw sugar for sprinkling
Instructions
- Use a food processor to grind the chocolate until it's in very fine bits, almost like powder (see pics).
- Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking soda together onto a piece of parchment paper (or into a bowl) and set aside. Note, I almost always skip sifting but in this case you really don't want lumps in your cocoa powder. You can save the parchment paper to bake the cookies on.
- In a stand mixer (or with an electric mixer), cream the butter, sugar, and salt together until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolk and vanilla, beating until combined, then scraping down sides.
- Finally, add the sifted dry ingredients and grated chocolate, and mix until just combined. It will be a pretty crumbly dough, just go with it and trust the process, but you may need to give it a few more pulses with your mixer to get it to moisten and come together a bit.
- Lay out some plastic wrap and scrape the dough onto it. Use your hands to bring it together into one lump (I flatten it with my hands to make the rolling easier). Wrap it up and chill it in the fridge until just firm, about 20 minutes. You don't want it to get fully hard, because it gets harder to roll out.
- Preheat your oven to 350 F. On a very lightly floured surface, roll the dough out gently. It takes some patience as the dough will still be quite crumbly. I used little wiggles with gentle pressure, only try to slightly flatten it each roll. You want them fairly thin so they have a crispness to them, like 1/4-inch thick?
- Line baking sheets with parchment paper and cut the dough into desired shapes. You'll have to re-roll the dough a few times as you cut pieces out, to try and use up as much as possible. Space them apart slightly as they will spread a tiny bit. If desired, sprinkle decoratively with the raw sugar.
- Bake for 8 to 11 minutes, and then leave the cookies on the baking sheet for a few minutes once they come out of the oven before carefully transferring them to cooling racks. This is because they're fragile until they cool.
- You can store the cookies in an airtight container for up to two weeks, or in the freezer indefinitely.
Notes
- I strongly recommend only using Dutch-process cocoa, not regular cocoa powder.
- For the chocolate, you should be somewhere between 60-73% cocoa. I've used a 73% Valrhona and a 63% Guittard and both have been great.
- If you’d like a bittersweet chocolate cookie, use the 1/2 cup of sugar amount (that's what I do). If you’d like a slightly sweeter cookie, use 2/3 cup.
- I rolled my dough a little thin probably, but I like the texture that way.
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