Breaking up is easy (and tasty) to do.
This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe was another quick and delicious treat. Like the savory cheese and chive bread we made a few weeks ago, the dough for salted butter break-ups came together quickly. The ingredients — flour, sugar, sel gris (grey sea salt), unsalted butter, and water — are mixed in the food processor in a matter of seconds.
After mixing the dough, I pressed it out into a rectangle, which I then wrapped and refrigerated for a few hours.
I rolled the chilled dough out between layers of plastic wrap to about 5 x 11 inches. Then I brushed the dough with egg wash and made a cross-hatch pattern in the dough à la peanut butter cookies. I baked the dough in a 350°F oven for about 30 minutes, until it was crisp on the outside and tender on the inside.
After cooling the break-up, I placed it on the table whole, and we kept breaking off pieces all evening as we passed the table. I expected it to be like a thick cracker, and the saltiness of it was certainly reminiscent of homemade crackers I’ve made. But the sweetness and thickness of it were definitely more cookie-like. I would call it more of a salty cookie than a sweet cracker. And neither of those descriptions may sound all that appealing, but trust me when I say this cookie/cracker was addictively delicious.
So call it what you want. But definitely call me when you bake this recipe. I’ll be right over.
