Beurre & Sel Cookies from Molly MacRae

 

Aren’t these cookies beautiful? They taste every bit as good as they look. I came across the recipe in 2012, in the then current issue of Bon Appetit Magazine. They’re the creation of James Beard award-winning cookbook author Dorie Greenspan. Here’s something fun I just found out—Dorie Greenspan is a fan of mystery writer Louise Penny. Such a fan, in fact, that she created a Lemon Meringue Cookie especially for Penny’s Inspector Armand Gamache. You can find that recipe here.

I’ve departed from the original Beurre & Sel recipe by treating the cookie dough like shortbread—rather than roll it, freeze it, and cut it into rounds, I press walnut-size lumps of dough straight into the bottom of the muffin tin. Works fine, saves time.

Almond extract in place of all or some of the vanilla extract might be a nice variation, or using almond flour in place of the all-purpose flour in the streusel. A few other variations my family thought of: sprinkle the cookies with lime or lemon zest, crystalized ginger, chopped nuts, or rosemary. MMmmm, next time.

Beurre & Sel Cookies

Makes 24 to 36 cookies (depending on how accurate you are at pressing ¼-inch of dough into each muffin cup).

Cookie dough ingredients

1 cup butter, room temperature

 ½ cup sugar

 ¼ cup icing sugar

 ½ teaspoon salt

 2 large egg yolks, room temperature

 2 teaspoons vanilla

 2 cups all-purpose flour

 

Streusel and filling ingredients

 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

 1/3 cup sugar

 1/4 teaspoon salt

 5 tablespoon chilled butter, cut into bits

 3/4 cup thick jam such as blackberry, raspberry, apricot, or marmalade

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Cookie dough: In a large bowl, either by hand or with an electric mixer, beat butter, sugars, and salt until pale and creamy, 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla. Add flour and stir or beat (low speed) just to combine. Take walnut-sized chunks of dough and press into the bottom of muffin tins (no need to butter tins) Dough should be about ¼-inch thick.

Streusel: In a small bowl, mix flour, sugar, and salt. Rub in the butter with a pastry blender, fork, or your fingertips until well blended.

Drop 1 teaspoon of jam into the middle of each cookie. Using a small spoon, sprinkle 1 ½ tablespoons streusel around edges of each cookie, trying not to get any in the jam (if you do, no one is going to care).

Bake 20-22 minutes, or until the sides and streusel are getting golden. Cool 15 minutes, then remove from pan with a knife. 

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on Twitter  or Instagram.