194 – Cookies with Apricot Jam (Sablés à la Confiture)Recipe

Ingredients :

• 2 cups (250 grams) all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• A pinch of salt
• 1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves (optional)
• 1 stick of butter (8 tablespoons / 113 grams) soften at room temperature
• 1/2 cup (100 grams) white sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Apricot jam (or another jam type, nutella, etc.)
• Powdered sugar

Directions :

Step 1: Mixing the Dry Ingredients
1- First sift the flour.
2- In a large bowl, mix the flour, the baking powder, pinch of salt, and ground cloves. Set aside.

Step 2: Mixing the Wet Ingredients
1- Using the flat paddle of a stand mixer (or a regular egg beater), cream the soft butter with the sugar, at low speed, until you get a creamy consistency and the sugar is completely dissolved in the butter.
2- Add the egg and the egg yolk, increase the speed a notch or two, and continue beating.
3- Add the vanilla extract. Continue beating until you get a smooth mixture.

Step 3: Mixing the Dry and Wet Ingredients
1- Add the dry mixture little by little to the wet mixture and mix until you get a smooth and soft dough.
2- Wrap the dough in a plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for 1 hour.
Note: the dough has a lot of butter, so when you are working with it and it becomes sticky, just wrap it in a plastic wrap and place in the fridge until it cools down then continue working with it. If it is too hard, leave it a few minutes on your kitchen counter and it will become soft again.

Step 4: Shaping the Cookies
1- Sprinkle some flour on your work station. Take the dough out from the fridge and work it a bit with your hand to soften it.
2- Using a rolling pin, roll the dough. It should not be too thin or too thick (around 2-3 millimeters).
3- Using a cooking cutter to cut cookies in the dough. Ideally they should have the shap of a flower, but feel free to use the shape of your choice.
4- Using the back of a piping tip (or any other object you have) make a hole in the center of the cookies. Half of the cookies should have a hole and the other half should NOT.
5- Preheat your oven to 350 F degree (180 C) while shaping the cookies.

Step 5: Baking and Assembling the Cookies
1- Bake the cookies for around 10 minutes. Watch them closely when they are baking – they bake pretty fast. The cookies should not get color, they just become slightly golden. In mid-time of baking, turn your baking pan around, so the cookies cook evenly (the cookies in the back of the oven come to the front and vice versa).
2-  Once done, place the cookies on a grill to cool down.
3- Once cooled down, sprinkle the cookies WITH the holes, with powdered sugar.
4- Put jam on the cookies WITHOUT the holes, then top them with the cookies WITH the holes. You will get a beautiful apricot jam cookie!
Serve cold with Moroccan mint tea! Bon Appetit!