This chocolate diamond cookie is the queen of French cookie recipes, giving its more famous sisters, the madeleine and the macaron, a run for their money.
About French Cookie Recipes
While French dessert recipes are legendary, French culture is not known for its cookies. Friends in France, in fact, complain about the dearth of decent cookies. They often prefer to bake their own American-style chocolate chip cookies at home. Other types of French cookies tend to be a little fussy (French macarons, palmier cookies). Or, they require a fiddly pan that no one wants to store (madeleines). So, our ongoing debate about which are the best French cookies has been a little restrained. That is, until we met these cookies.
About these Chocolate Diamond Cookies
These chocolate diamond cookies are quite a revelation. They require no special equipment. They rely on basic ingredients, and are quick and easy. These easy French butter cookies are based on classic French sablés Breton. Sablé means “sandy” in French. This indulgent treat is a very buttery (is there such a thing in life as too much butter? Clearly, no). They are a crumbly, slightly less sweet French version of a shortbread cookie from the Brittany region.
These popular French cookies are given a pretty diamond shaped and dipped in sparkling sugar for extra crunch and glitter. Taking a cue from the French twist on chocolate chip cookies (sablé aux pépites de chocolat), shards of dark chocolate, rather than chocolate chips, are mixed into these delicious cookies for an extra chocolatey crunch. Unlike American sugar cookies, these easy French cookies contain no leavening agent. This gives them a crumbly, rather than chewy texture. Easy, refined, and glamorous, all in one elegant cookie. What is not to love about these delicious treats?
About Superfine Sugar
This cookie relies on superfine sugar for its crumbly texture. Superfine sugar is emphatically NOT icing sugar. It is granulated sugar with superfine sugar crystals. If you can’t find it in your local grocery, you can simply take granulated sugar and whizz it in your food processor for a few minutes to grind down the sugar crystals.
Cookies, Cookies, Cookies!
Need more cookies in your life? We’ve got you covered!
More French Pastry
Inspired by all this discussion of French desserts? Here are a few more to try!
Chocolate Diamond Cookies: Queen of the French Cookie Recipes
This chocolate diamond cookie is the queen of French cookie recipes, giving its more famous sisters, the madeleine and the macaron, a run for their money.
In the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl using a hand mixer, beat together the butter, sugar, and eggs, until well combined. Do not overmix, as we don’t to aerate the dough.
Add the dry ingredients (flour and cocoa), and beat until just combined.
Add in the chopped dark chocolate and use a rubber spatula to stir to combine.
Remove the dough to a sheet of plastic wrap and shape into a log. The log can be round or square, depending on your taste. Its length and width are also up to you. We shaped our cookies into a roughly 3 inch square, giving us about a 16 inch log. To make your log square, press it against a vertical baking sheet, using a pastry scraper.
Chill log in refrigerator for 24 hours. It should be very hard.
Preheat oven to 350 F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
Remove the cookie dough log from the refrigerator and roll it in sanding sugar. If the sanding sugar won’t stick (ours was fine), you can brush the log with water or egg whites.
Use a sharp knife to cut the cookies into half inch pieces. The cookies won’t really spread or puff, so you can put them relatively close together on the baking tray.
Bake 16-20 minutes until the top of each cookie and outside is set. Remove from oven and let cool 5 minutes on baking sheet, before removing to a wire rack to fully cool.
Notes
Cookies will keep in an air-tight container for several days.
Keyword chocolate, cookie, French, sparkle
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Cornstarch helps product soft and thick cookies. Using more brown sugar than white sugar results in a moister, softer cookie. An extra egg yolk increases chewiness. Rolling the cookie dough balls to be tall and lumpy instead of wide and smooth gives the cookies a bakery-style textured thickness.
Macarons are the most popular type of cookie in Paris, but they are popular throughout the rest of the world as well, and they appear with different fillings and in various sizes, colors, and flavors.
French macarons are delicate sandwich cookies with a crisp exterior. Each individual cookie is known as a macaron shell. The shells are made without any chemical leaveners and get all of their lift from properly beaten egg whites. If you follow the recipe carefully, the cookies have a unique nougat-like, chewy texture.
Cookie chemistry: We're taking a 180° turn from our crunchy cookies, substituting higher-moisture brown sugar and butter for their lower-moisture counterparts: granulated sugar and vegetable shortening. That, plus a shortened baking time, yields a cookie that's soft and chewy all the way through.
If you enjoy your cookies soft and chewy, chances are likely the recipe contains a common ingredient that serves a very specific purpose. No, it's not granulated sugar, nor the butter. It's not the egg, all-purpose flour, or even the vanilla extract. The simple, yet oh-so-necessary component is cornstarch.
Baking powder or flour in excess will cause cookies to rise more, making them more fluffy and cakey. Increased sugar will make them caramelize more and increased fat will make the dough heavier and richer, all increasing retention of water in the dough- these all add up to chewier cookies.
Oreo is the best-selling cookie in the world. It is now sold in over 100 countries. Oreo was first produced in 1912 by the National Biscuit Company, now known as Na-Bis-Co.
In France Lu cookies are the equivalent to Oreos. Not that they taste the same, nor look the same. No, not at all. But, like Americans (kids included) who indulge on the white center of the Oreo cookie before eating the chocolate crust, the French have a similar tradition, they snap off the corners of the LU first.
Some claim cowboy cookies hail from Texas, a state many cowboys call home.Others say the treats were named for their ability to withstand long days in saddlebag. Whatever its origin, the combination of oats, chocolate, pecans, and coconut is undeniably delicious.
The word biscotto, used in modern Italian to refer to a biscuit (or cookie) of any kind, originates from the Medieval Latin word biscoctus, meaning 'twice-cooked'.
Baking soda is typically used for chewy cookies, while baking powder is generally used for light and airy cookies. Since baking powder is comprised of a number of ingredients (baking soda, cream of tartar, cornstarch, etc.), using it instead of pure baking soda will affect the taste of your cookies.
So, when you mix corn syrup into your cookie batter, all of that moisture will make and keep your baked cookies deliciously tender. The texture of cookies benefits from corn syrup as well. As you combine your ingredients to make your cookie batter, corn syrup will pull some of the surrounding air into your batter.
Bread releases moisture into the air, while sugar (present in large quantities in cookies), absorbs moisture out of the air. Don't have any white bread? Use a slice of apple instead. Just slip a wedge in with your cookies, cover, and let sit overnight.
To avoid this, try using as little flour as possible while preparing to roll your dough. Dry – “Dry” or “Crumbly” dough is a product of over-mixing or using too much of any ingredient during the mixing process. This can be reversed by adding one to two tablespoons of liquid (water, milk or softened butter) to your mix.
If you like a chewier texture in your cookies, toss in an extra egg yolk to your mix. Adding extra egg yolks works wonders to enhance the moisture content in a cookie, making it super soft and gooey. As a family that loves a soft cookie, this is one of our favorite hacks!
Another way to soften cookies is by placing the cookies in an airtight container with a damp paper towel. The paper towel will release moisture and help to soften the cookies without making them too soft or mushy. Another way is to place the cookies in a plastic bag with a slice of apple or a damp tea towel.
Introduction: My name is Corie Satterfield, I am a fancy, perfect, spotless, quaint, fantastic, funny, lucky person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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