Breton biscuits are a variant of sable biscuits, very popular in France. These are salted butter cookies flavored with vanilla essence and decorated with parallel lines that are their distinctive trademark but do not add anything in terms of flavor.
Before you frown, it should be said that despite the use of salted butter, the result is not similar to other salty preparations such as crackers, but rather sweet with a salty touch. Contrary to what many believe, the salty flavor is not the opposite of the sweet and most pastry doughs have a little salt precisely to enhance the salty flavor (salty butter does not actually have a large amount of salt).
INGREDIENTS :
- 300 grams (11 oz) of flour
- 180 grams (6.3 oz) of salted butter (if you do not have salted butter to convert 180 grams of sweet into salty, you must use 5 grams of salt, aproximately one teaspoon)
- 120 grams (4.2 oz) of granulated white sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon of vanilla essence
We leave the butter out of the refrigerator so that it becomes soft at room temperature. If it is sweet butter, when it is soft you add the teaspoon of salt and beat well to mix.
Pour the butter cut into pieces and the sugar into a bowl, beating well until it foams (if you have electric rods, it is time to use them).
Next we add the vanilla essence, mixing well.
We then incorporate the well sifted flour and little by little, stirring with a spoon until we have to use our hands to knead.
We form a ball and take it to the refrigerator, the lower part that is coldest, so that it takes shape. It should stay for an hour and a half to two hours.
After the time we remove from the refrigerator and make a roll, a cylinder, about 2 or 4 cm (aprox 1-1.5 inch) in diameter. Next we cut sections of half a centimeter (1/4 inch) thick, that is, we make the cookies.
We place them on a baking paper and paint them with the egg yolk. We take them back to the fridge and keep them for another half hour. When we take them out, we paint them again with the egg yolk and with a fork we make some stripes on their surface (they are the characteristic mark, but as I said at the beginning they do not affect their flavor at all).
We preheat the oven to 180 degrees (356 F) and bake between 10 and 15 minutes, depending on how thick we have given the cookies.
They are served as is or accompanied or even dipped in lemon or bitter orange jam.