Georgiannes
A sablé cookie recipe, with chocolate, ginger, tart cherries, and pink peppercorns.
This is the first cookie recipe I ever developed on my own, and I'm proud of it. The flavors are complex, and fun together: intense dark chocolate (thanks to a bit of black cocoa, the stuff they make Oreos out of), crystallized ginger, tart dried cherries, and the secret weapon: pink peppercorns.
This is a sablé style cookie, kind of like a butter cookie or a shortbread cookie. The dough is shaped into a log, rolled in pink sparkling sugar, then sliced and baked, so you get nifty coin-shaped cookies with a fancy sparkly edge. This style of cookie keeps longer than most other cookies—I don't know how long, what am I a food scientist? Let's say a week, but probably more.
The day I finished this recipe, my daughter and I happened to watch an episode of the Netflix series High on the Hog (highly recommended!) that told the story of young Black people who bravely protested against racial segregation at Rich’s Department Store in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 19, 1960. I was particularly moved by the account of Dr. Georgianne Thomas, who was just 19 at the time. She still bears a scar on her wrist where a racist asshole burned her with his cigarette that day. So I named these cookies Georgiannes in tribute to her.
Ingredients
- 210 g all purpose flour
- 30 g unsweetened cocoa powder
- 25 g black cocoa powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), room temp.
- 200 g (1 cup) sugar
- ¾ tsp sea salt
- 1 egg yolk
- ½ tbsp vanilla extract
- 16 g (1½ tbsp) finely chopped crystallized ginger
- 40 g (3 tbsp) finely chopped dried tart cherries
- 2 tsp ground pink peppercorns (1 tbsp before grinding)
- pink sprinkles (optional, decoration)
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, whisk or sift together the flour, cocoa powders, baking soda, and ground ginger.
- In a small bowl, toss the crystallized ginger and dried cherries in a little bit of flour until well coated and separated. Stir into the flour mixture, along with the ground pink peppercorns.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter, sugar, and salt until smooth. Mixture should look slightly fluffy.
- Add the egg yolk and vanilla extract to the creamed butter mixture and mix until combined.
- Add the flour mixture to the stand mixer and mix on low until just combined into a thick, smooth dough.
- Turn the dough onto a work surface and form it into two logs, each about 1½ inches wide and 10 inches long. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for one hour.
- Shape into more perfectly round logs, and roll in pink sprinkles.
- Re-wrap logs in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least two hours, or overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Unwrap a log and cut slices 4-5mm thick. Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, spaced 1½ inches apart. (5 x 3 arrangement)
- Bake cookies for 9 minutes.
- Remove cookies from the oven and let cool completely on the baking sheet.
Unbaked dough logs can be kept in the fridge for up to two days, or the freezer for two months. Baked cookies last for a week or two, I guess?
Here's a printer-friendly Google Doc version of the recipe:
