Butter Cookies (French Palets Bretons)

Brittany (Bretons) is famous for its rich butter sweets - usually made with salted butter - and one of those is a crumbly cookie, called “palet” in reference to its puck shape. They have a buttery taste, are slightly salty and sweet at the same time, very crumbly and melt in your mouth too quickly. Palets Bretons are quite popular all around the country and can be found in every supermarket, but they are easy to prepare and obviously taste better homemade.

3 oz salted butter (80 g)
3 oz confectioners' sugar (80 g)
5 oz all-purpose flour, unbleached (140 g)
1½ tsp. baking powder
2 egg yolks

Mix the yolks and the sugar well in a food processor. Add the softened butter, mix again. Add the flour and the baking powder. Knead it for 5 minutes. Form a thick sausage (diameter=the bottom of one whole in a muffin form), wrap it in plastic film and put into the fridge for 1 hour (or more, until the dough becomes hard enough to be easily sliced).

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C/160°C fan, Gas Mark 4).

Take the dough out of the fridge, unwrap it, cut into 1 cm (about 0,4 in) thick slices.

Put them inside the muffin forms (this way they’ll be more or less of equal size and will only rise instead of spreading around).

If you don’t have muffin forms or other cookie forms, simply put the cut cookies on a baking sheet, but at your own responsibility: they’ll probably spread around and become flatter than the ones “imprisoned” in a mould.

You can sprinkle them with coarse salt for an extra salty crunch.

Bake for 15-20 minutes till golden.

Makes 12-15 cookies.

Cook's Notes:  Together with Crème brûlée palets are a good way to use up egg yolks (if you have made Coconut Cookies for example…or another dish calling for whites uniquely).