I love sablée cookies. They’re not too sweet, have a great texture and are a great base for making into different flavor combinations. This cookie has a soft, crumbly texture. For this recipe I chose to flavor it with fresh orange zest and tahitian vanilla bean seeds but you cold choose a variety of flavors such as five spice, lemon-lime and so on. You just have to make sure that the added water content isn’t, or the mix will be much too soft. This will cause it to be difficult to handle, and spread too much while cooking. What makes these cookies, is that after the dough is rolled into logs, they are coated with an eggwash lightly (some skip this, but I like a good amount of sugar on mine and it allows for more to stick to the sides), then they are then rolled in sugar and sliced into about 1/2″ pieces. This gives the cookies a nice, crunchy sugar crust after baking. I prefer to use a demerrara sugar for this, which will give it a nice earthy color and a firmer crust, but a white sugar will work also.

Orange-Vanilla Sablée Cookie Dough:

400g unsalted butter
160g 10x sugar
1g salt
zest 2 oranges
2 van. beans, scraped
44g egg yolks
450g AP flour

Cream the butter, 10x sugar and salt. Add the zest and vanilla seeds and continue on the paddle for another two minutes. Add the yolks and flour, mix until just combined. Do not overwork the dough.

Divide the dough into five equal portions. Roll each portion into a log around 1 – 1 1/2″ in diameter. Brush each roll with egg wash and roll in sugar. Place in refrigerator to firm up. Cutting the dough when it’s to soft will give you some trouble. Once firm cut the rolls into pieces about 3/4″ thick. Place on a parchment lined sheet tray. Make a small indent in the center on each cookie with your thumb. Bake in a 350 degree oven until the edges brown slightly, around 20 mins. Due to the small amount of egg in this dough, they will seem soft, but will firm up as they cool.

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First off, yes I know I’m very late in writing this report. Funny how life gets in the way of so many things (see Ice Storm story). Anyway…

On October 23, 2008 the Vermont Expedition Society gathered in Northern Vermont on the border with Quebec to begin it’s 4-day, 335 mile trek to Massachusetts. What makes this trip special, is that over 170 miles of it are on trails.
By utilizing unmaintained town highways, or class IV roads, the club hopes to draw attention to the possibilities that these venues give to the public for recreation.

I had the pleasure this year to ride along with Jason Merrill, the Executive Chef at The Hanover Inn in New Hampshire. He offered me the co-pilots seat in his rig for the trip, with the plan for he and I to fuel saturday night with some fare we’d brought in. Due to family obligations (and Jason’s work obligations) we’d both missed the first day. We met up with the group late night on saturday. The plan was to meet them at Camp VTXS (Vermont Expedition Society), but the weather that day had put them so far behind in time that we were forced to change plans and meet them at the VTXS Flophouse a few towns over.

sorry for the pic quality… it was POURING!

We spent our time warming the place up and heating up dinner. Jason made his fantastic chili for the crew (30 quarts for 15 people!)

I busied myself with the heat, and making sure the desserts I brought were set up. The crew finally rolled in about 8:30pm. after a 15 or 16 hour day on the trail. We all ate very well thanks to Jason and hit the beds.

The next day started with Brian discovering a leak of ATF into the radiator. He and Chris T. headed off into the morning to patch it up. We made out way on to a great day of trails. And marvelled at Brian completing a radiator tear-down, a trip to Concord, NH from Woodstock, VT and back, and a radiator install in something like 4 hours. The trip alone is around 3! We made great time and arrived at our bed down right on schedule.

A good nights rest had us waking to the final day. After a coffee and food run the group was off on our way. We managed to dig up some nice challenging terrain, along with some really great views. We finished our day and the trip on the border of Massachusetts right about 5pm.

It was a great trip and I really look forward to it next year with all new towns and roads to explore.

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