Lavender Chocolate Biscuits Sablés

Lavender chocolate biscuits made using a sablé recipe which are a typical french biscuit that are incredibly buttery and take their name from their "sandy" crumbly texture.

This recipe comes with a tiny bit of background: my mother grows lavender in her garden and harvest season has just come to an end. During harvest, she picks the flowers and puts them out to dry in the sun, after a few weeks, she plucks them to remove the stems and gather the little buds aka the nice smelly bit. She puts handfulls into mousseline bags which get distributed into cupboards and bed and fill the house with a lavender haze.

All this to say, one night I was eating dark chocolate on the couch when I smelled one of the lavender bags and suddenly thought, wow that goes really well together! And from there came the idea for this unlikely pairing. The obvious next step was then to put it in a buttery biscuit, because why not! So here is my recipe for lavender chocolate biscuits (sablés).

Recipe:

Sablés:

1 egg

100g icing sugar (if possible, lavender infused)

200g butter, softened

300g flour

40g cocoa powder

20g lavender syrup

Chocolate Coating:

100g dark chocolate, 80%

30g lavender syrup (or more to taste)

Sea salt

Lavender Syrup:

50g caster sugar

50g water

10g lavender buds

If possible, make lavender sugar the night before by mixing 100g icing sugar with lavender buds (approx 50g), stir and leave in an airtight container for at least 12 hours. Before you're ready to start the recipe, sieve the sugar to remove the lavender.

Start by making the sablés: mix together the butter, sugar and flour, then rub between your fingers. Add the egg and combine together to form the dough.

Split the dough into 2 bowls.

In one half, add the coca powder and stir to combine.

In the other half, add the lavender syrup and stir to combine. If the dough becomes too sticky, add 1-2 Tbsp of flour.

Combine the 2 halves and roll into a sausage using cling film. Place in the fridge to firm up for 1-2 hours.

Once firm, remove the cling film and slice the dough into 1 inch round biscuits, then place the biscuits on a baking tray and bake in the oven at 180degC until the edges are brown (approx 15mins).

Leave the biscuits to cool down on a rack.

In the meantime, prepare the dipping chocolate: melt the dark chocolate either over a bain marie or in the microwave at 10sec intervals, add lavender syrup to the mix while the chocolate is melting, taste and add more syrup if required.

Dip half of each biscuit into the chocolate, place on a baking sheet and sprinkle with sea salt.

Leave the lavender chocolate biscuits in the fridge to allow the chocolate to firm up, then enjoy!

Full video of the recipe on my YouTube Channel