French Fridays with Dorie: David’s seaweed sablés

This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe (David’s seaweed sablés, p 14) was a surprise hit. Knowing it was a David Lebovitz recipe adapted by Dorie, I had no doubt the recipe would work, but just wasn’t sure about the combination of the sweet and salty with seaweed. In a shortbread cookie.  I mean, I love sweet and salty but with seaweed?  In actual fact it turns out that not only was the base shortbread recipe one that I will go back to again and again but the entire combination really worked much more than I was expecting. I just made a half batch of this (I didn’t think I needed 70 of these hanging around the house!) and they were gobbled up at a dinner party last weekend by our curious guests (who had been invited over for a “blog meal” where I bake and cook what I need to post over the next little while for the blog!). They were initially curious, then skeptical, then blown away by the buttery, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread and the salty seaweed combo. With a little Prosecco, of course!

As you can see from the two pictures above, I baked the sablés in two batches – one of the chilled logs of dough was thinner than the other and I wanted to make sure they baked evenly. The first batch (top photo) I found a little on the pale side so the larger cookies (above) I left in the oven until they were a little more golden. Both batches were tasty but I preferred the larger, more golden batch.

I’ll definitely be making these again – both with seaweed and without. Unusual with the seaweed for sure, but sans seaweed, they are just a fabulous little shortbread cookie.  I’m thinking they would do very well with just some chunks of coarse sea salt and then half-dipped in chocolate – no????

You can find the inspiration for this cookie on David Lebovitz’ site – note that he uses seaweed salt whereas Dorie calls for finely chopped nori.

French Fridays with Dorie participants do not publish the recipes on our blogs, rather, we prefer if you purchase Around My French Table for yourselves (trust me, you definitely want this book!) which you can do here on Amazon or Amazon Canada. Or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository. Go on, treat yourself – join us I have not missed a week since October 2010 and the recipes that I didn’t like I can count on one hand.

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31 thoughts on “French Fridays with Dorie: David’s seaweed sablés”

  1. My family needed a chocolate fix, so I made the beet salad instead 🙂 I’m so glad you enjoyed these…they definitely piqued my curiosity!

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  2. Lovely pictures 🙂
    I think there will be a split verdict this week – I liked these, but definitely have to be in the mood to eat them.
    Have a great weekend & safe travels.

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  3. I love how Dorie recommends prosecco with everything! If only my life were so grand! 🙂 I really liked these too and I’m going to give them to some unsuspecting colleagues at work today. We’ll see what happens. Beautiful, beautiful pics as usual!

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  4. Hmm… Seaweed in a cookie? I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that one. Perhaps this is one to try after the baby is born and the risk of queasiness has dropped considerably. 🙂 The sans seaweed version does sound lovely, though!

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  5. You have convinced me I need to try these. I’ve looked at the recipe several times and wasn’t sure if the seaweed would fly. I think dipping them in chocolate is a fabulous idea. Hope you have a lovely weekend.
    -Gina-

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  6. Well, I’m happy to hear that somebody liked them. To be honest, I would have liked to have tried your batch. Mine weren’t great. I love traditional sables, but not so much these.

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  7. I thought they were quite tasty but when I brought a batch over to Tricia’s house, she thought they tasted like shrimp. It was a very unusual combination of ingredients to be sure, but
    very interesting. Have a happy weekend.

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  8. I realize that Dorie told us not to let this cookies brown too much but I liked my crispier version better (well, I really didn’t like the seaweedish flavor but loved the shortbread cookie). Did you . make the Cocoa Sablé in March? I really think anything can be added to the classic little guy but maybe “dipping” is the way to go. The Sablé hasn’t heard the last of me but I think the seaweed version has! Glad you were positive about this, Mardi.

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    • Yes I made the cocoa sablés – have not missed one FFWD since it started! And I think I am *mostly* positive about the recipes – I can count the “misses” for me on one hand… And you’re right – the sablés have not heard the last of me either!!

      Reply

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