“As for butter versus margarine, I trust cows more than chemists.”
Joan Gussow
These cookies surprised me. When I made the dough I thought I had ‘it’ all wrong. Ambitiously adding ingredients with not enough deep thought, I wrote them off even before I baked them. But sometimes substitution can be a pleasant surprise. These Savoury Dill Cheddar Buckwheat Sables were a happy ending to one such culinary adventure! I hardly ever bake sables. Please don’t get me wrong. I love the cookies to bits but somewhere in my head I associate them to be loaded with butter. Chocolate sables = guilty pleasure, a pleasure I can ill afford these days as baking and food seems to rule my existence! Got to keep the butter down; not out, but down!
I missed the last couple of months of #baketogether, Abby Dodges absolutely charming bake up party. The talented Abby inspires a group of avid bakers month after month with a #baketogether recipe that you are encouraged to play around with. Just my cup of tea coffee! I’ve had some wonderful past entries with Double Chocolate Mousse Cookies, Classic Spice Apple Walnut Buttermilk Cake, and Plum Almond Ginger Summer Fruit Cake. This month she called for savoury cookies from her recipe for Spicy Parmesan Sables. Though still short on time, and breathless in life, I couldn’t keep away from them. I LOVE SAVOURY BAKING. Besides, the ‘not so terrible anymore’ teen is constantly craving for either double chocolate double almond biscotti {recipe on its way}, or ‘something chili’ please!
I decided to experiment because halfway through I ran out of plain flour! I made up the weight with buckwheat, and used fresh dill to flavour the cookies. Dill and cheddar make for good pairing, and I have had a huge patch of dill growing in my garden. After an overnight rest, the cookies were baking soon.
Dill is a beautiful herb, delicate with a wonderful aromatic flavour that comes to life when the leaves are chopped. In India, there is a more robust variety of dill, locally called soya, which is widely used in the winter months in North India. One bite into the warm cookie and I was so relieved. These were so good. Thankfully the dill wasn’t overpowering, and the buckwheat gave the cookie good texture, other than scoring on the whole grain front too! However whole grains like buckwheat are an acquired taste, and unfortunately the ‘not so terrible anymore’ teen didn’t love it to bits. I was a little disheartened and hesitatingly ran it past the ‘now threatening to be quite terrible’ pre-teen. He said, “YUM! Can I have the whole box?“. You win some, you lose some. These are a nice cheese tray cookie and would pair well with mature cheddar and fruit! As Abby says, “Made with butter, cheese, flour and cayenne for a kick, they make for a lovely hors d’oeuvre to serve with wine or cocktails and the possible twists are endless”
Thank you Abby for yet another winning recipe, and also yet another chance to push my boundaries. You are an inspiration!
[print_this]Recipe: Savoury Dill Cheddar Buckwheat Sables
Summary: A savoury cookie that packs big-time flavor with a flaky, melt-in-your-mouth texture. Made with butter, cheese, flour and cayenne for a kick, these cheese crackers make for a lovely hors d’oeuvre to serve with wine or cocktails. Makes 29-30 sables.
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 40 minutes {plus chilling time}
Ingredients:
- 110gm all purpose flour
- 50gm buckwheat flour {or use all plain flour}
- 50gm cheddar, grated
- 1 teaspoon table salt
- 1 tsp chopped fresh dill
- 1/4 teaspoon {adjust to taste} red chili pepper {or cayenne pepper}
- 100gm unsalted butter, cut into cubes, well chilled
- 2 tablespoons very cold water
- Sea salt & fresh dill for sprinkling
Method:
- To make the dough:
- Put the flour, buckwheat flour, cheese, salt and chili powder in a food processor and pulse briefly to combine. Add the butter and pulse until the butter pieces are slightly larger than pea size, about 10 to 12 pulses depending on your machine. Drizzle the water evenly over the flour mixture. Pulse until the dough begins to form moist crumbs that are just beginning to clump together, about 8 or 9 more pulses depending on your machine.
- Dump the moist crumbs onto the unfloured counter and gather into a pile. With the heel of you hand, push and gently smear the crumbs away from you until they start to come together in a cohesive dough. Two or three ‘smears’ should do the trick. Using a bench scraper, gather the dough together and turn it about 45 degrees and give it one or two more smears. {see visuals here}
- Gather the dough together and shape the dough into a 7 1/4-inch long and 2 1/4 -inch wide rectangle using the bench scraper to make the sides nice and straight. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until very firm, about 3 hours, or up to 2 days.
- Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 190°c. Line two large baking sheets with parchment. { I used just one cookie sheet}
- Using a thin, sharp knife, cut the logs into 1/4-inch slices and arrange about 1 inch apart {they don’t spread much at all} on the prepared sheets. If you like, sprinkle the crackers with a little sea salt and fresh dill before baking.
- Bake, one sheet at a time, until nutty brown around the edges, 16 to 18 minutes. Serve slightly warm or room temperature. {If they aren’t crisp as you like, you can bake them at a lower temperature for 10-15 minutes longer. Keep an eye so they don’t get burnt}.
- Note: The dough can be shaped and frozen for up to a month and then thawed for about an hour on the counter or in the refrigerator overnight. Likewise, tuck the baked and cooled sables in a heavy duty zip top bag and stash them in the freezer. Thaw at room temperature and warm them for a few minutes at 160°C to refresh the flavors.
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