Whole Wheat Sablé

Adapted from Luisa Weiss’s The Wednesday Chef blog and Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich (Artisan, 2007)

Of all the good cookies I’ve baked, this is the one I turn to again and again. The unadorned Whole Wheat Sablé. To me, it’s the little black dress of cookies—simple, elegant, and endlessly reliable. Thanks to Alice Medrich, with a hat tip to Luisa Weiss.

Whole Wheat Sablé

4.5 ounces King Arthur All-Purpose Flour
4 ounces King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened, and cut into 1-inch pieces (I use Kerrygold)
3.5 ounces granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat a convection oven to 325°F (what I do) or a regular oven to 350°F.

Stir the flours together in a bowl and set aside. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla for about a minute, just until smooth. Scrape down the bowl, add the flour all at once, and mix until just combined. Knead briefly by hand to ensure all the flour is incorporated.

Form the dough into one 12 x 2-inch log or two 6 x 2-inch logs. Wrap in parchment or plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours, ideally overnight.

Cut the cold dough into ¼-inch slices and space the cookies 1½ inches apart on cool, parchment-lined baking sheets.

Bake until light brown at the edges—about 14 minutes in my convection oven.

Cool slightly on the tray, then transfer parchment to a rack. Once firm enough, move cookies to a cooling rack using a small spatula.

These cookies are better the next day. Alice Medrich says, “They can be stored in an airtight container for at least a month.” I doubt they’ll last that long.

Note 1: When you take a tray out of the oven, the temperature drops. Let the oven recover for 5 minutes before starting a new batch—the same amount of time the cookies should sit on their baking sheets before being transferred to cooling racks.

Note 2: Always use cool half-sheet pans for fresh dough. Have enough on hand that you don’t need to reuse hot ones.

Note 3: Make sure your oven is fully preheated before baking. An oven thermometer can help confirm that the temperature is accurate and stable.

Personal Notes

By the time I tried this recipe, I had already learned to make cookie dough logs and figured out a method that works well for me. I make the dough one day, roll it into logs, refrigerate overnight, and bake the next morning. I use a stainless steel ruler to measure and slice the cold dough quickly with a Messermeister cheese knife—it glides right through. This helps the cookies stay round.

To keep things moving smoothly, I use nine half-sheet pans and five cooling racks. I bake three trays at a time in my Wolf dual-fuel range on convection mode, without rotating the pans. I let the baked cookies cool briefly on the trays before using an offset spatula to transfer them to racks.

Whole Wheat Sable on Left