Cooking with a Parisian

The basics · Cookies

Brown Butter, Slice-and-Bake Logs and Rolling Dough

Three techniques you will use again and again in French baking.

How to brown butter

  1. Cut the butter into pieces and melt it in a light-colored saucepan over medium heat, so you can see the color change.
  2. It will foam and crackle: that is the water evaporating. Keep swirling the pan.
  3. After 4 to 6 minutes, the crackling stops, the foam settles and small brown specks appear at the bottom. It smells of toasted hazelnuts. Pour it immediately into a bowl, specks and all, so it does not burn.
  4. Let it cool before using it, as the recipe says. Brown butter loses about 15 percent of its weight as water: the recipes already take this into account.

Slice-and-bake logs

  1. Place the dough on a sheet of plastic wrap or parchment and roll it into a log of the diameter given in the recipe.
  2. Wrap it tightly and twist the ends like a candy wrapper. Roll it on the counter to make it perfectly round.
  3. Chill until very firm: 1 to 2 hours in the refrigerator, or 30 minutes in the freezer. Logs keep 3 days in the refrigerator and 3 months in the freezer.
  4. Slice with a sharp knife, giving the log a quarter turn after each cut so it stays round.

Olivier's tip

Keep a log in the freezer for the day friends drop by.

Rolling and cutting out cookies

  1. Roll chilled dough between two sheets of parchment paper: no extra flour, no sticking.
  2. Check the thickness given in the recipe with a ruler. Even thickness means even baking.
  3. Slide the rolled dough, still between its sheets, onto a tray and chill it 15 minutes before cutting: the shapes will be much neater.
  4. Dip the cutter in flour (or in water for sticky doughs) between cuts. Gather the scraps, roll them once more and chill again.

More recipes from Paris

Salted Dark Chocolate SablésSablés au chocolat et à la fleur de selSalted Dark Chocolate SablésMakes about 36Brown Butter and White Chocolate CookiesCookies au beurre noisette et chocolat blancBrown Butter and White Chocolate CookiesMakes 20 to 24Honey and Brown Butter MadeleinesMadeleines au miel et au beurre noisetteHoney and Brown Butter MadeleinesMakes about 18Quiche LorraineQuiche lorraineQuiche LorraineServes 6