Piped "Pâte Sablée"

Pâte Sablée is french for “sand dough”. It refers to its sweet, rich and crumbly characteristics. 
I’m a big fan of cookie cutters and cute things you can achieve with the regular “pâte sablée”, but the recipe I’m sharing today is soft enough that it can be piped, opening up possibilities for new shapes and ideas. This is a very easy to make “sablé” dough. It’s not too sweet, so feel free to add sweet notes to the cookies, it will give them a beautiful and delicious touch.

Serve the cookies with coffee, tea… 

Piped Pâte Sablée

Adapted from L’Encyclopédie du Chocolat. Sous la direction de Frédéric Bau. Ed. Flammarion

Ingredients
5 ¼ oz (150 g) Unsalted Butter
3 ½ oz (100 g) Powdered Sugar, sifted
1 egg
¾ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
½ oz (15 g) Heavy Cream
7 oz (200 g) All Purpose Flour, sifted
¾ oz (20 g) Corn Starch, sifted
A pinch of Salt
decoration suggestion: chocolate pearls. ground pistachio...

Directions
Scale and prep all the ingredients
You will need a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, two baking sheets lined with parchment paper, a pastry bag and different tips depending on the shapes you want to achieve.

Heat the oven to 320F (160C).

Mix the butter in the bowl of the stand mixer on medium speed for a few minutes, until the butter has a silky and creamy texture. Add the powdered sugar and mix until very well combined. Add the egg, vanilla and heavy cream. Mix again. Add the flour, corn starch and salt and mix briefly. Once you add the dry ingredients like flour and corn starch, be careful not to over mix the dough.

Fill the pastry bag with a fair amount of dough. Pipe and create the shapes you want  onto the lined baking sheets. Decorate with chocolate pearls or ground pistachio...

Bake until slightly golden. The baking time will vary depending on the cookie shapes. Be attentive and don’t over bake them.