If there’s one cookie that defined my childhood, it is undoubtedly this one: the Breton Salted Butter Sablé, also known in French as the Galette Bretonne. It is a crisp, “sandy” cookie made with the simplest of ingredients: flour, sugar, eggs and a lot of butter enriched with sea salt flakes. It can be found in all bakeries across Brittany, and lots of natives like myself will tell you it is their absolute favorite.
Simply put: it boasts the perfect combination of sweet and salty flavors, finished with a generous amount of salted butter.
Now, like most Brittany recipes, the making of these Breton Salted Butter Sablés is very simple. Brittany cooks like to rely on simple, yet high quality ingredients. So before you start, here are a few notes on your choice of butter and salt – the two most important ingredients in this recipe.
Choose the right butter
A good quality butter will go along way for this sablé cookie, since the buttery taste is so prevalent. But you also need to choose the right butter.
In France, you have the choice between “beurre doux” (unsalted butter), “beurre demi-sel” (slightly salted butter) and “beurre salé” (salted butter, with sea salt flakes – also about 3 to 5% more salty than the “beurre demi-sel”/slightly salted butter). The latter, beurre salé, is mostly consumed in the North-Western part of France, which includes Brittany and Normandy. And it is this one, the “beurre salé” that should be used to make these salted butter sablés. In my kitchen in Canada, I recreate this salted butter by using unsalted butter to which I add fleur de sel. Using unsalted butter allows you to control the amount of salt in the butter, and in the recipe – and to properly recreate this salty, crunchy bite with the sea salt flakes.
Beware – you can now commonly find “demi-sel” French butters in the US/Canada at some grocery stores (such as Echire’s) or even some European-style butter, cultured or not cultured (such as Land O Lakes’). I’d say these are definitly good-quality butters (and I’d strongly suggest using them for other baking projects), but they are not “beurre salé” (salted butter, with coarse sea salt). They do not contain the same amount of salt, nor sea salt crystals in them, and they won’t give the finished sablé that same authentic taste.
Choose the right salt
To salt the butter and achieve an authentic taste, I rely on French Fleur de sel. My pantry is always stocked with a bag or two that I bring back from France, but you can find some original Fleur de sel de Guérande online and in some grocery stores in the US/Canada.
If you can’t find fleur de sel, try to find some other good-quality sea salt flakes. Maldon is very good too. It has fine flakes but the volume can remain the same as fleur de sel in this recipe.
These Breton Salted Butter Sablés are often kept in rectangular tin boxes with a flip lid. They are usually decorated with illustrations or photos depicting Brittany life. After many years living between Brittany and Canada, I brought back several of these to Canada, and I make a great use of them since I always have a few batches of these sablés in my kitchen, ready to eat. If not in a tin box, keep the sables in a sealed Tupperware, as they can last for up to 10 days.
If you try this Breton Salted Butter Sablés recipe, let me know! Leave a comment or share a photo using #pardonyourfrench on Instagram.
Bon Appétit!
This recipe is inspired by the book Aimer La Cuisine de Bretagne, by Jacques Thorel
If you like French cookies and Sablés, you might like:
- Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Sablés
- White wine Almond Cookies
- Speculoos Cookies
- Almond Pistachio Crescent Cookies
10 comments
I’ve made these a couple times and they always turn out either too pale or the bottoms are completely burnt. Any suggestions?
Hi Stephanie! These sablés are very buttery so the bottom is supposed to be quite brown once baked (although not burnt). Are you making sure you use a rack placed in the middle of the oven, or even higher (not in the lower half?). This sounds look an issue I had quite often with my previous oven, where most of the heat would come from the bottom and was not even. This took a little while until I found the right setting, and played around with the high of the rack. I hope this helps!
Nice!
thanks!
Hello Audrey. About 3 years ago you provided us with a recipe for Breton Salted Butter Sablés, where you gave us instructions for incorporating salt into the butter into the sablé dough. I have a block of Les Prés Salés butter in the fridge, and am wondering if I can substitute that instead of following the recipe to add seasalt to unsalted butter.
Hi Will! Yes it looks like Les Prés Salés butter comes with big sea salt flakes, so you don’t need to add more salt to the butter. Happy baking!
I’d like to make these cookies, but in rural Michigan my butter choices are limited. Can you provide a recipe for the appropriate amount of fleur de sel to add to a pound of unsalted butter? I know that various salts have differing consistency and weights so is the recipe the same for Maldon sea salt?
Hello, Ken. I hope I’m understanding the question properly. Maldon and fleur de sel can basically be used interchangebly for this recipe. If you wanted to salt your own pound of butter (this recipe only uses 250gr of butter) I would suggest using 14gr of fleur de sel or maldon (a bit less than 3 teaspoons) for a pound of butter.
This past Christmas I need my gift box of holiday, baked, cookies, and candies… Which are always a hit. Shortly before baking, I had the good fortune of securing 4 boxes of ‘La Grande Galette’ made by St. Michel. Thrilled to have French Butter Cookies made with Guérande sea salt, I realized my excitement caused be to over. I thought. “I’ll use them for my gift boxes. But still, 4 boxes were a lot…until it wasn’t. When I figure out what to do, I began my bake day only to find 2 boxes entirely disappeared!
My point: the authentic French store bought ones are irresistible (my French husband agreed as a crumb fell to his collar :-).
I made apple cider caramels dipped in chocolate. I save some caramel for my Galette idea. I let a caramel melt on the bottom of one galette and placed another in top to make a sandwich. The caramel firmed a distinct but thin line between the cookies and welded them together. Then, with a serrated knife I sliced the Galette sandwich in half….which was quite easy if place solidly in a hard surface. I then dipped half of the galette half in dark chocolate and then dipped in toasted walnuts or pecans.
They were absolutely devine. The butter flavor with the saltiness combined with the tang of the caramel was delicious. And the sandy texture with the slight chewiness of the caramel contrasted nicely. The amount of nuts and chocolate were purposely conservative so as to complement the caramel and cookie, respectively.
Now, I do not expect to run into a stash of St. Michelle Galette’s next year. Yet, I already have requests for them. So I will take 2023 to perfect the ones I make homemade from your recipe. Thank you for including the emphasis on the ingredients. They truly are a special type of cookie. I can see where it can be ruined without the right ingradients.
This is some wonderful storytelling, I can picture every word you wrote… And the “caramel sandwich” idea sounds absolutely delicious! I’m sure with enough practice, your homemade version will be every bit as good as the St. Michelle (or close enough). And I’m sure your husband won’t mind helping to eat all the practice!