• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Start Here
  • Baking 101
  • Recipes
  • Shop

The Bake School

menu icon
go to homepage
  • Start Here
  • Baking 101
  • Recipes
  • Shop
  • Subscribe
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
  • subscribe
    search icon
    Homepage link
    • Start Here
    • Baking 101
    • Recipes
    • Shop
    • Subscribe
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
  • ×
    Home » Recipes » Cookies

    Published on: February 4, 2013 by Janice Lawandi; Updated on: July 18, 2023 2 Comments

    Vanilla sablés

    36 shares
    • Facebook21
    • Reddit
    • Flipboard
    Jump to Recipe

    Learn how to make vanilla sablés, a classic cookie in French pastry, also called sablés diamants because of the sparkly sugar coating on the edges of the cookies.

    This last week has been all about recipe testing. Trying new recipes, changing up the order of ingredients, finding "the" recipes and methods that yield the texture and taste that I am looking for. It's seriously a lot of fun! I love comparing recipes and seeing for myself what an extra yolk will do to the flavor of a vanilla sablé recipe, or what replacing the icing sugar with granulated sugar does to the texture.

    Of course, the "downside" is the number of cookies I end up making to do all these tests. And, if you happen to go to the gym with me, you will end up cornered in the locker room and swayed into following up your sweaty efforts with a cookie taste test that will annihilate all the efforts from that grueling bootcamp class (Sorry gym buddies! I love you!).

    Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

    What is a French sablé cookie?

    The term "sablé" is French for "sanded" because sablé cookies have a sandy texture, much like real shortbread do. The recipes for sablé and shortbread are quite similar, but the French sablé usually contains an egg or an egg yolk and even milk and vanilla, while 1-2-3 shortbread traditionally is only made with three ingredients: flour, sugar, and butter. Sablé cookies can be made plain, or flavoured with cocoa powder or melted chocolate, ground almonds, dried herbs and spices, etc. Traditional sablé cookies usually are vanilla, though you will also find chocolate sablés, or even almond-flavoured versions. Sablé cookie dough is very similar to pâte sucrée, which can also be rolled or pressed into a tart pan to make a lovely tart shell. You can even flavor it with matcha to make a tart shell.

    In the search of my favorite vanilla sablé recipe, I tested 4 different recipes to find the best:

    1. Dorie Greenspan recipe #1, featuring both granulated and powdered sugar
    2. Dorie Greenspan recipe #2 from her Beurre et Sel bakery, featuring a slightly different ration of granulated and powdered sugar, but also an extra yolk
    3. My own recipe, based on Dorie's second recipe, but in mine I eliminated the powdered sugar and replaced it with granulated sugar
    4. Patrice Demers' (one of Montreal's top pastry chefs) recipe that features only granulated sugar, more yolks, baking powder, and a very different mixing method to make the dough

    The gym girls preferred recipe #4, though K commented that it tasted eggy. Very true. Recipe #4 has more yolks. They liked the look of the #4 cookie as well, which is funny because I didn't like its look at all. Their choice: 4 > 3 > 2 > 1. #4 was the clear winner.

    I also subjected my family to the same taste test. For them, #4 wasn't the winner. My family could tell apart the cookies made with a mix of granulated and icing sugar, from those made with just granulated sugar. The remark: the cookies made with icing sugar were more tender, and perhaps more like a shortbread. The results again were mixed, and there wasn't a clear winner, though once again, #1 was the loser. #2 and #3 were tied. 2 ~ 3 > 4 > 1

    What do I think? Well, I didn't like #4. I found it too eggy. I didn't like it's look, and it was obvious that the egg yolks made it yellower, spread more, and I suspect the baking powder made it brown a little more than the others. I did appreciate the fact that #4 had a more "sablé" (sandy) texture though.

    I honestly preferred #3, which was my recipe. I didn't like the extra tenderness from the icing sugar in #1 and #2. I didn't really like the look and taste of #4. I preferred the taste and texture of #3 so that's the recipe I'm sharing with you (the other three recipes are available online at the links I provided above).

    This vanilla sablé cookie recipe calls for pure vanilla extract because it's the best way to add vanilla flavour to cookie doughs and cake batters. If you don't have vanilla, try replacing it with a little rum or some bourbon! Or if you want an alternative to vanilla extract so that you can see flecks of vanilla seeds in this cookie, use the same amount of vanilla bean paste!

    Lately, I've been replacing the egg yolk in sablé cookies with milk instead (because I hate separating eggs) and I find that this results in a very light, buttery cookie with a lovely, sandy texture that is perfect. Here's my updated version of the slice-and-bake vanilla sablé cookies.

    📖 Recipe

    sables

    Vanilla Sablé Cookies (slice-and-bake)

    AuthorAuthor : Janice Lawandi
    Slice-and-bake vanilla sablé cookies are easy to make. Traditional recipes are made with an egg yolk or an egg, but this recipe is eggless, replacing the egg with a little milk
    5 from 1 vote
    Prevent your screen from going dark
    Print Recipe Pin Recipe Save Recipe Saved Recipe
    Prep Time 20 minutes mins
    Cook Time 16 minutes mins
    Chill time 12 hours hrs
    Total Time 12 hours hrs 36 minutes mins
    Course Dessert
    Cuisine French
    Servings 60
    Calories 45 kcal
    Need measurements in CUPSUse the button options below to switch from Metric to US measurements! It's that easy!

    Ingredients
     
     

    • 173 grams unsalted butter softened
    • 100 grams granulated sugar
    • 1.25 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
    • 5 mL pure vanilla extract
    • 280 grams bleached all-purpose flour
    • 30 mL whole milk (3.25 % fat)
    • Turbinado sugar roughly ¼–½ cup or 50–100 grams

    Instructions
     

    • Use a mixer to cream the butter and sugar+salt. Beat in vanilla.
    • Add the dry ingredients to obtain a dry crumble, and finally add the milk, which magically transforms it into a cookie dough.
    • Press/roll out the dough into a long 14-inch log, slice in half (for easier storage in fridge). Roll each log in turbinado sugar (~¼ cup) and then wrap in plastic and chill overnight.
    • Slice the cookies fairly thin and bake at 350 ºF (175 °C). I like to bake them around 16 minutes - edges should be golden.

    Notes

    • Please note that I bake with uncoated aluminum sheet pans that are light in colour. If you are baking this recipe with darker bakeware, you may have to drop the oven temperature to 325 °F (165 °C) to prevent your baked goods from browning too quickly.

    Nutrition

    Calories: 45kcalCarbohydrates: 5gProtein: 1gFat: 2gSaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 6mgSodium: 9mgPotassium: 6mgFiber: 1gSugar: 2gVitamin A: 72IUCalcium: 2mgIron: 1mg
    Give backIf you enjoy the free content on this website, buy me a pound of butter to say thanks!

    More Cookie Recipes

    • A plate of amaretti cookies.
      Orange Almond Amaretti Cookies
    • A plate of lemon poppy seed sugar cookies.
      Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies
    • Transferring baked banana oatmeal cookies to a plate to serve them.
      Banana Oatmeal Cookies
    • White chocolate macadamia cookies on a cooling rack.
      White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

    Baking resources

  • Baking conversion charts
  • Baking ingredients and pantry staples
  • Baking substitutions
  • Common baking conversions
  • Choosing baking pans
  • How to measure ingredients for baking
  • Mixing methods
  • Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Medeja says

      February 04, 2013 at 11:39 pm

      I would like to go to the gym with you 😀 I would probably stay only till the cookies are finished 😀

      Reply
    2. Torviewtoronto says

      February 04, 2013 at 5:24 pm

      looks wonderful lovely pictures

      Reply
    5 from 1 vote (1 rating without comment)

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




    Primary Sidebar

    This is a picture of Janice Lawandi

    Hi, I'm Janice!

    I am a baking-obsessed recipe developer with a PhD in Chemistry who writes about baking and the science of baking.

    More About Me

    Join the Community

    If you enjoy the free content on this website or have questions, consider joining the Bake School Community!

    Easter Treats

    • Strawberry jam with rhubarb smeared on a piece of toast on a plate.
      Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
    • Freshly baked rhubarb crumble ready to be served.
      Rhubarb Crumble
    • Rhubarb upside down cake sliced to serve it.
      Rhubarb raspberry upside-down cake
    • Serving rhubarb muffins on plates with a side of butter.
      Rhubarb muffins with sour cream and streusel
    • Let's bake with rhubarb-best rhubarb recipes roundup
      What to bake with rhubarb
    • Bluebarb or blueberry rhubarb crumble with a marzipan oat crumble topping in a blue baking dish with a fluted edge
      Blueberry rhubarb crisp with marzipan crumble

    Berry Baking

    • Milk crumbs on a Momofuku Milk Bar style cake-layers of blackberry curd, almond cake, and almond frosting
      Blackberry almond cake — Milk Bar style
    • raspberry amaretti semifreddo slice
      Almond raspberry semifreddo
    • Vanilla cardamom tapioca pudding with strawberries
      Homemade tapioca pudding recipe with fresh strawberries
    • A pan of baked honey blueberry muffins with streusel topping.
      Honey blueberry muffins
    • A plate of raspberry financiers.
      Raspberry Financiers
    • Honey-kissed-strawberry-rhubarb crumbles
      Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble With Honey

    Eggless chocolate cake

    Chocolate layer cake with cream cheese frosting and chocolate sprinkles on a cake stand.
    Learn to make an eggless chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting!

    Baking conversions

    Buy the baking conversion charts NOW!

    As seen on

    Logos of online and offline publications that featured the Bake School and Janice Lawandi.

    How to poach pears

    Poached pears on an enamelware plate.
    This easy poached pears recipe is simple and you can use the poached fruit for salads, appetizers, and desserts!

    Footer

    ↑ back to top

    About

    • Meet Janice Lawandi
    • FAQ
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms and conditions
    • Accessibility
    • Press

    Newsletter

    • Sign Up! for emails and updates

    Contact

    • Contact
    • Services
    • Portfolio

    As seen on

    Logos of online and offline publications that featured the Bake School and Janice Lawandi.

    As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

    COPYRIGHT © 2025 · THE BAKE SCHOOL

    Rate This Recipe

    Your vote:




    A rating is required
    A name is required
    An email is required

    Recipe Ratings without Comment

    Something went wrong. Please try again.