One of my favourite things to do of late is to walk around the food halls of Harvey Nichols, Harrods and Selfridges and generally gawk at all the glamorous food they have to offer. Everything is just so expensive, so gawking is all I do and maybe once in a while relish the occasional Laduree macaron. I was in Selfridges the other day and came across the Pierre Herme section in their food hall. The macarons and pastries and all things French were so pretty that I actually spent a good 10 minutes taking it all in. These tiny biscuits were packaged well and I had half a mind to pick it up, but again, the price almost made me blind and so I chucked the idea, mentally making a note to do a search online and make it myself.
Days passed and I completely forgot about it, and that's when the lovely Shirley of Kokken 69 blogged about a similar looking biscuit on her blog. Didn't think twice and so set about making a batch. I must say they are the easiest biscuits to make and are so delicate and pretty, I didn't even want to eat them, but just go on clicking pictures.
Recipe adapted from here
Salted butter- 95 gms (at room temp.)
Table/ sea salt- 2 gms
Powdered sugar- 40 gms
Vanilla extract- 1 tspEgg white- 30 gms
Plain flour- 125 gms
In a mixing bowl cream together the butter, salt and sugar till smooth. You can use a wire whisk, no need for a mixer.
Add the egg white and whisk to combine well. Like Shirley says, the mix may look a bit curdled, but its fine, really!
Whisk in the vanilla extract and then fold in the flour making sure you have a smooth, lump free dough an the end.
Scoop the batter into a piping bag fit with the nozzle of your choice and pipe away on to a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Make circles or any shape you prefer. Not a concern, they are gonna be awesome whichever shape :)
Bake in an oven pre-heated at 180C for about 10 to 12 minutes or lightly brown. Please don't keep it longer than that.
Notes: The original recipe calls for Fleur de Sel, but obviously I didn't have it and so added some extra sea salt which did give out a nice salty taste, but if you have fds use that instead.
I accidentally ended up with 30gms of egg white when the original said 15 gms. I don think it made a difference though..to me at least!
