Jane’s Biscuits

Sablés are a type of French biscuit which can be either sweet or savoury. They’re very light and crisp but can be a wee bit of a faff to make. For a quick and easy alternative I use Darina Allen’s recipe (Ballymaloe Cookery Course, page 461) for Jane’s Biscuits. This is a much easier alternative – the only difficulty is trying to stop people snaffling them when they’re left to cool.

Ingredients

(makes 25)

• 175g (6 oz) white flour
• 110g (4 oz) butter
• 50g (2 oz) caster sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.

Put the flour and sugar into a bowl and rub in the butter (by hand or – as I did – using a food processor) as for shortcrust pastry.

Gather the mixture together and knead it lightly.

Roll out to 7mm (¼ in) thick.

Cut into rounds with a 6cm (2½ in) cutter or into heart shapes.

Arrange on silicone paper on a baking tray and bake in the moderate oven until pale brown, 10-15 minutes. (I didn’t have silicone paper but I do have something else that does the same job, made out of glass fibre and Teflon – you can see it in the two photos.)

Remove and cool on a rack. Serve with fruit fools, compotes and ice creams.

Here’s a pic of mine before I put them in the oven. As you can see, I made mine in star shapes (and managed to get 18 biscuits out of the mixture).