These cookies are nice with champagne or white wine as an aperitif. Alternatively, they’re great alongside soup. The best cheese for these cookies is a soft, mashable fresh goat cheese, often sold under its French name, chèvre. Chives are my first choice, but if you can’t find them, you can use the pale green parts of slender scallions or even the scallions themselves.
Recipe adapted from Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016
Ingredients
- •113 grams (1 stick; 8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into chunks, at room temperature
- •85 grams (3 ounces; ⅓ cup packed) soft fresh goat cheese
- •2.5 ml (½ teaspoon) fine sea salt
- •2.5 ml (½ teaspoon) cracked or coarsely ground pepper (black or white)
- •30 ml (2 tablespoons) finely cut fresh chives or minced scallion greens or scallions
- •1 large egg, at room temperature
- •5 ml (1 teaspoon) honey
- •170 grams (1¼ cups) all-purpose flour
Preparation
Using a stand mixer with paddle attachment, or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat the butter, cheese, salt, pepper and chives together on medium-low speed until light and well blended, about 2 minutes. Add the egg and honey and beat for 2 minutes. Liquid will pool on the bottom of the bowl — it’s not pretty, but it’s okay. Turn off the mixer, add the flour all at once and pulse to start incorporating it. Then mix on low speed only until the flour disappears and the dough comes together. If you have some dry ingredients on the bottom of the bowl, stir them in with a flexible spatula.
Turn the dough out and press it into a disk. Place between pieces of parchment paper and roll .6 cm (¼ inch) thick. Keeping the dough between papers, slide it onto a baking sheet and freeze for at least 1 hour.
Center a rack in the oven and preheat it to 177°C (350°F). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Have a 3 cm (1¼ inch) diameter cookie cutter at hand. Peel away the parchment paper from both sides of the dough and return it to one sheet. Cut out cookies and place on the lined baking sheet, leaving at least an inch between them. (If the dough gets soft as you’re cutting, stop and put it and the already cut cookies in the freezer to firm briefly.) Gather the scraps together, flatten them into a disk, re-roll and freeze.
Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until the cookies are browned on the bottom, lightly golden and firm to the touch on top. As the cookies bake, you’ll see butter bubbling around the tops and edges — it will settle into the cookies as they cool. Transfer the baking sheet to a rack and allow the cookies to rest for at least 5 minutes before serving, or let them cool completely.
Note: The rolled-out dough can be wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 2 months; cut and bake the cookies directly from the freezer. The baked cookies are best served within hours. If you keep them overnight, warm them in a 177°C (350° F) oven for a few minutes before serving.