How to make Sablé (butter cookies)

Awhile back I was enjoying a tin of plain old "butter cookies" and wondered if they were easy to make. I did a little searching, and quickly came up with a recipe for sablé.

Sablé is a very basic recipe that can be amended in innumerable ways, but at its core it's essentially a butter cookie with a very crumbly, "sandy" texture. (The word "sandy" in cookies refers to the degree to which they crumble in your mouth - if you do sablé right, when you press one against the roof of your mouth, it practically dissolves in fine-crumbed perfection.)

The recipe I have is based on proportion rather than measurement. For simplicity's sake, I've decided that "one part" equals a half-cup. So, "two parts butter" is one cup of butter, "one part sugar" is a half-cup of sugar, and "four parts flour" is two cups of flour. This makes it easy to halve the recipe for a smaller batch: half-cup butter, quarter-cup sugar, 1 cup flour. For salt, a pinch is still a pinch. (And I always seem to forget the salt!)

Having made this recipe several times, I've been wanting to try some variations. Certainly you could mix in some cinnamon or nuts, but "dipped in chocolate" always seemed like a good idea too. And something lemony. So today I made a small test-batch, divided it into thirds, and then experimented with the lemon and chocolate variations.

For the lemon cookies, I added a couple teaspoons of lemon zest to one third of the dough and then made up a small batch of lemon cream-cheese frosting (recipe here - I quartered this recipe and still had some left over). Once my cookies were baked and cooled, I simply frosted them and let the frosting firm up a little.

For the chocolate version, I made up some "sort-of ganache" (recipe here - I quartered this recipe as well, but again only because I was making a test-batch). I spread some like frosting, and also tried drizzling it over some of the cookies. It does firm up, making a glossy chocolate coating.

Both of these - and also the plain sablé - are superbly wonderful. They would be lovely accompaniments with lemonade, coffee or tea.

Here are the plain sablé cookies, along with a couple peanut butter cookies just for my hubby:

Next we have the lemon-frosted - I also put lemon zest in the cookie dough. These were my favorites!

And finally, the "sort-of ganache"-covered Sablé - the ones that I merely frosted with the ganache were very good; the coated ones were a bit over-powered by the ganache. Probably chocolate "almond bark" would work as well for a milk-chocolate coating.

Sablé (Butter Cookies)

2 parts butter
1 part sugar
4 parts flour
Pinch salt

Combine butter, sugar, and pinch of salt in large bowl; add flour a little at a time, blending completely. When well-blended, form dough into a log about 1-1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap in plastic wrap, and chill in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F. Remove chilled dough and cut into slices about 1/8 inch thick. Arrange on cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes, watching carefully for signs of over-browning. Remove to cooling rack.
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Use what you have: Beach Vignette

I noticed that Cindy over at My Romantic Home is giving away her beautiful hand-made seashell wreath (which of course I entered to win - you should too!) and I got to thinking about some shells I have had ever since I was a kid... yes, I've carted them around with me, rescued them from my parents' house and TWO floods, for about 40 years.

I wondered how I could use them and as I wandered around the house, looking for a container that would be fittingly beachy, I found this gathering dust:

This was my prize in the white elephant gift exchange at work last Christmas. I actually really like the shape and the candle, though I've never been too crazy about the potpourri. Perfect!

I had to ask my husband where the shells were - I knew only that we'd probably brought them to the new house after the most recent flood (2008), but he seemed to know exactly where they were and produced them immediately.

After a thorough cleaning of all the shells, the container, the scrolly rack (I could paint it white!) and the candle, I loaded it up and produced this:

Which looks great sitting on our glass coffee table, next to our postcard of the Caribbean and the large conch shell we got in St. Thomas many years ago:

I think it makes a very happy little beach scene!

More soon!

Use what you have: stationery box

My little home office/dressing room has presented some very good opportunities to begin displaying some of the treasures I have saved from my grandmother's and parents' estates, as well as a few things I've kept of my own over the years.

So these days, when I find that I'm in need of a particular type of container, I try to think first about whether I have something vintage that might work. (If I don't, then I'm simply forced to pay another visit to my favorite round of thrift stores - ah well!)

This week I was looking for a way to keep my new dollar-store notecards corraled on my desktop, along with a pen and stamps, to make using the notecards less of a hassle.

A little digging through my treasure trove of family items turned up Grandma's vintage cedar jewelery box, which works perfectly for this purpose - it's just the right size to hold all my supplies, and of course it smells wonderful!

A few of the extras in the top photo include: a picture of hubby, and the pencil cup he recently made for me on his lathe - he is teaching himself wood-turning, and is creating some really lovely-looking pieces. And, the 3D teacup wall pocket hanging above - it's filled with one of Great-Grandma's hand-crocheted doilies.

More soon!

Favorites on the wall

Here’s a look at more of the wall on which the Lavender Shelf is hanging. There are lots more treasures here!

This sweet picture of kittens hung in my grandmother’s bedroom for more than 45 years. I don’t know how long she owned it, but I used to love to stare at it when I was young and I kept it after she died. Its original frame, which was much more Victorian-looking than this modern version, was destroyed when our home flooded, but I was able to dry out the picture itself - although, the hole in the paper on the right side is also a result of flood damage.

The plates also came from Grandma’s house, where they hung over the buffet in her dining room throughout her life. They are purple transfer ware in a Johnson Brothers pattern called Great Castles of Britain. The platter depicts Cambridge Castle, while the plates show Windsor. I’ve also seen this pattern in blue, which I believe is far more common.

Finally, my husband likes a lot of 1970’s home décor, including some of the wall decorations from a company called HODA. These HODA butterflies don’t seem as dated to me as some of the other HODA pieces I’ve seen - they are just sweet enough, and timeless enough, to fit right in with my vintage items and the Lavender Shelf.

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Use what you have: shabby magazine rack

I was looking recently for a way to corral the Victoria and Romantic Homes magazines that have been piling up, but of course wanted them within easy reach of my reading chair. After looking at a few thrift stores I realized that I already owned the perfect thing - it was tucked away in a storage unit that is currently holding the last of the items from my dad's house. (I REALLY need to bring it all home so I can eliminate the expense of the storage unit - it's been two years!)

This piece is a barrel-style tub with handle and my parents bought it (I think) back in the late 50's or early 60's. It spent its entire life up to this point in a dark honey-oak color. I have actually never liked it (along with a blue-and-yellow vinyl ottoman, it was one of my least favorite objects in my childhood home - I have no idea why!). I realized that if I just gave it a coat of white paint it would look wonderful next to my reading chair!

So I painted it up to match my glider rocker, "lined" it with some of Great-Grandma's hand-stitched pillowcases, and VOILA: perfectly shabby magazine rack!

More soon!

The joys of letter-writing

This past week I took my daughter to Half-Price Books, in search of a copy of her required summer reading, Playing the Enemy (the book upon which the film Invictus in based). While in line at the checkout, I perused an impulse display of paperbound classics - and decided to purchase something by Jane Austen, whom I have never read.

I happened to select Sense and Sensibility, her first published novel, and I truly fell in love with it! It was very difficult to read at first - it probably doesn’t even qualify as flowery prose, but Austen definitely uses a hundred words where Hemingway would only use 10. It forced me to slow down, find the rhythm of the writing, and really focus on what was being conveyed. No small feat, since a speed-reading course long ago doomed me to a life of devouring whole books in a matter of a few hours.

Since finishing the book, I’ve done just a bit of cursory research about the Regency period in England during which it was written and takes place. One bit of cultural history I enjoyed learning about was the process and etiquette of letter-writing.

Since the postal system had not yet been established as we know it today, if you wanted to communicate with someone across town you took a large sheet of paper and wrote them a letter on one side of it. You then folded it into a sort of self-contained “envelope”, affixing a wax seal to close it securely. (This not only made the letter easily transportable - it also assured the recipient that it had not been opened and read.) You then gave the letter to your footman, who was obligated to carry it immediately to the addressee.

I have long been a fan of writing letters. In fact I have very fond memories of a series of letters I exchanged in 10th grade with a male friend who moved away, and even farther back, a series I exchanged with a British pen pal named James who had very distinctive handwriting - I spent quite awhile trying to duplicate his capital letter "J." (I also remember discovering Hallmark sealing wax when I was in about sixth grade.) Unfortunately, with the exception of Christmas cards, I haven’t regularly corresponded with anyone via the hand-written method for many years.

In her book, Gift of a Letter, interior designer Alexandra Stoddard - a lifelong letter writer - says, “A personal letter can be one of the most intimate and touching of human expressions, one to another… I’ve come to realize that letter writing is the height of true communication among human beings, especially among friends.”

Letter-writing seems to me to be a custom worthy of reviving. How about you - are you a letter-writer? Have you ever been moved, to joy or despair, by a hand-written letter?

Treasure hunting grounds

One of my favorite past-times is to spend a couple hours wandering the aisles at my favorite area antique mall, The Brass Armadillo, here in Des Moines. The Brass Armadillo has brought me a lot of joy over the years, from finding a then-elusive covered casserole to go with my handed-down set of Currier and Ives dinnerware, to finding just the right set of home-made wheels for my husband to use in building his faux cannon for our front yard:

Here, though, is one of my absolute favorite booths at the Brass Armadillo - this is what I imagined my little store would have looked like if I had ever opened it:

What I like about this booth is that is lays out a collection of treasures, making each one visible but also making a beautiful cohesive vignette.

More treasures around the corner, inside the booth:

It took me a long time to understand something about shopping in a booth like this: When I buy an object from this vignette, I need to think about how I’m going to display it in my home so that it creates the same opportunity to see and appreciate it as it did in the store. That’s why, these days, I try to only buy items I already have a place for at least in my mind - whereas, in the past, I’d buy something just to acquire it, and then be disappointed when it didn’t give me the same satisfaction away from all of its in-store companions.

Of course, I never distance myself too far from the possibility of discovering something completely unplanned:

More soon!