• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About
  • Recipes
  • Travel
  • Keeping It Real
  • San Francisco
  • Online Pastry Classes

Shikha la mode

Eating Life to its Fullest in San Francisco, CA.

Home » Recipes » Cookies, Brownies, Bars » Cookies » Cornmeal Sablé (Shortbread) Ice Cream Sandwiches

May 18, 2020

Cornmeal Sablé (Shortbread) Ice Cream Sandwiches

cormeal sables

Remember when I said not all butter is created equal? Good! If you ever need to test out my claim, these cornmeal shortbread sandwiches—ice cream sandwiches!—with all the butter!—will rest my case.

Good, really good butter, will transform you. There’s a reason pastries in France taste so much better than they do here—it’s the butter! And if you’re lucky enough to try a Breton pastry, it’s game over.

The Breton region, in northwestern France, is famous for its butter. Always salted, its butter will make you cry with joy. For further proof, watch this video on how its made, which I have watched no less than twenty times and drooled copiously all over my laptop.

corneal sable ice cream sandwiches

No Breton butter in the US sadly, but we do have European salted butter, which has actually been easier to find lately than unsalted butter. And while most desserts call for unsalted butter, I present to you these crispy, light, melt-in-your mouth cookies that are salted butter all the way.

Breton-style shortbread cookies, or sablés, always use salted butter. It’s the salt that adds that extra flavor, bringing out the creaminess of the butter. I swapped out some flour to create an additional sandy texture that comprises these cornmeal shortbread sandwiches.

Oh yeah, sandwiches! If you think these sablés are good on their own, they’re even better with a big ass scoop of ice in between them. Quarantine or not, it’s still spring, and that means celebrating warmer weather. Use your favorite flavor for whatever you want your French-American pastry vibe to be.

melting ice cream sandwich

Recipe notes:

  • As you can guess, sablés use a lot of butter. That means the dough is tricky to handle as it gets warm fast. Don’t skip on taking the full time to chill the dough—otherwise your cookies will melt and bake unevenly.
  • I love Kerrygold butter for all my pastries. If you can’t find salted, use unsalted and add 1/4 tsp salt.
  • Don’t roll the sablés out too thin! Then they won’t stand up to the ice cream. A half-inch width is perfect.

Check out my cardamom sablés for a different take on these cookies!

Cornmeal Sablé (Shortbread) Ice Cream Sandwiches

Created by Shikha on May 18, 2020

ut class="jpibfi" type="hidden">


  • Prep Time: 1h 30m
  • Cook Time: 15m
  • Total Time: 1h 45m
  • Yield: 12-15 cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 stick good quality salted butter, room temperature
  • 50 grams (1/4 cup) granulated sugar
  • 2 egg yolks, room temperature
  • 120 grams (1 cup) all-purpose flour
  • 40 grams (1/4 cup) cornmeal
  • Zest from 1/2 a lemon (optional)
  • Ice cream of your choice, to make sandwiches

Instructions

  1. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes.
  2. Add the egg yolks, and beat until well blended, about 2 minutes.
  3. Reduce mixer to low and add the flour, cornmeal, and lemon zest. Mix until just combined; do not overmix.
  4. Shape dough into a disc, cover in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour (can also make ahead of time and chill overnight).
  5. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat.
  6. Cut out two large pieces of parchment paper and place the dough onto one of them. Place the other piece of paper on top, and roll the dough out 1/2-inch thick. Use a 2-inch cutter (or jar lid, whatever ya got!) to cut out rounds, and place 1/2 inch apart on the baking sheet. Gather the scraps, reroll and cut out more cookies.
  7. Freeze the cookies on the baking sheet for at least 30 minutes before baking. (Alternatively, you can stack the cut-out rounds between sheets of parchment paper, cover and refrigerate until you’re ready to bake the cookies.)
  8. Preheat to 350 degrees. Bake the cookies until the centers are set and the edges are very lightly browned, about 15 minutes. Rotate the pans from top to bottom and front to back halfway through the baking time. Immediately transfer the cookies to a wire rack, and let cool completely. Store the cookies in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
  • Print

Filed Under: Cookies Tagged With: Baking, breton, Cookies, French dessert, ice cream sandwiches, Recipe, sables, salted butter

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

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

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

logo
Food Advertisements by

About

Shikha here - a pastry chef, runner, and writer based in San Francisco. I've worked in several Michelin-starred restaurants and blasted a lot of hip hop during prep service. Now I develop recipes, write, run races, and teach classes so you too can eat life to its fullest.

Want SLM in your inbox?

Stay Connected

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Explore More

logo
Food Advertisements by

Popular Recipes

Nutella Puff Pastry Twists

Nutella Puff Pastry Twists

Recipe: {Gluten-Free} Pumpkin-Bourbon Tart and a Thankful List

cormeal sables

Cornmeal Sablé (Shortbread) Ice Cream Sandwiches

Keeping it Real

2020 Recap

Turning thirty one

Thirty One

thankful list

Quarantine Thankful List

logo
Food Advertisements by

Clever

Linqia

Copyright© 2021 · Brunch Pro Theme by Shay Bocks