Whole Wheat Sablés with Cacao Nibs

Those who know me know I rarely make a recipe as instructed. I’m always tasting, adjusting, reducing fat, eliminating sugar - morphing perfectly fine recipes into dishes nowhere near resembling the original inspiration.

But when I stumbled upon this Orangette recipe, something told me (perhaps it was the 133 adoring comments) to leave well enough alone. So I did. Pretty much. Her recipe, verbatim-ish.

Ingredients

2 cups (9 oz.) whole wheat pastry flour 
14 Tbsp. (1 ¾ sticks) unsalted butter, softened  
1/2 cup (3 ½ oz.) sugar 
1.5 ts vanilla extract 
1/3 cup raw cacao nibs

Method

1. In a medium bowl, beat the butter with the sugar, salt, and vanilla until smooth and creamy but not fluffy, (about 2 minutes with a mixer). Add the nibs and beat briefly to incorporate.

2. Add the flour, and mix until just incorporated (takes longer than you’d think).

3. Form the dough into a ball and knead until all flour is worked in. Next, shape the dough into a 12-by-2-inch log. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight.

4. Set racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven, and preheat the oven to 350°F. If your cookie sheets are small enough to fit 2 on a shelf, line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. If not, just line one.

5. Using a sharp knife, cut the cold dough log into ¼-inch-thick slices. Place the cookies at least 1 ½ inches apart on the prepared sheet pans.

6. Bake for 7 minutes, then move to bottom rack for 5 minutes, or until the cookies are light golden brown at the edges. Cool the cookies for a minute on the pans, then transfer them (with or without their parchment) to a rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.

Yield: approx 42 2” cookies