Chocolate Sablé Brownies for French Fridays

The crumbly nature of the dough for these cookies, inspired by both Pierre Hermé and Dorie Greenspan, left me thinking about another way, besides the traditional rolled, sliced and baked method, to form these cookies.  I decided to press the dough into a baking sheet, bake and cut the sablés into squares.  I picked up a graduated set of square cutters that I use for cutting everything from cookies to scones, in fact anything that I want cut in uniform small serving size pieces.  They're fun to use and leave a very small amount of scraps behind.  In Around My French Table  Dorie refers to Pierre Hermé's recipe as inspiration for her chocolate sable cookies.   So I went to check it out and noticed that Pierre's recipe had half the butter called for in Dorie's recipe so that interested me but there were things about Dorie's recipe that I liked too.  Et voilà, a hybrid sable recipe in the form of a brownie was born, with a few tweaks thrown into the mix by me.  This week I'm happily sharing the recipe because it's not from Around My French Table.  Please check out the links to all the cocoa sables at French Fridays with Dorie, if you haven't already done so, consider picking up a copy of Around My French Table and cooking along with the group.

Ingredients and Directions for Chocolate Sablé Brownies

Adapted from Pierre Hermé and Dorie Greenspan

3/4 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup spelt flour

1/3 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 stick & 3 tablespoons unsalted butter

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate baking chunks

In a medium bowl stir together the flours, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt, set aside.  Place the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer and on medium speed beat until creamy and light in color.  Add the sugar and vanilla extract, beat for 1-2 minutes.  Reduce the speed to low and add the dry ingredients.  Dough will be crumbly, stir in the chocolate chunks.  Turn the dough out onto a greased 1/4 baking sheet and press evenly into the pan.  Wrap and chill for a couple of hours or overnight.  When ready to bake, pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and bake for 16-18 minutes.  Cool in the pan until barely warm and with a square cookie cutter, cut into brownie shapes.  Make some new friends or call me and I will come over and help you eat what's left over in the pan!