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    Holiday Sables

      Servings:   50 sables
      Time:  9 mins, 20 mins chill time

    Ingredients

      1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
      1 cup sugar
      3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
      1/2 tsp baking soda & 1 vanilla bean, scraped
      1 1/4 tsp salt
      1 cup unsalted butter cut into 1
      2 cubes
      1 egg yolk dark or white chocolate ganache crushed candy canes and/or festive sprinkles

    Directions

    • Mix flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, vanilla seeds, and salt on low speed in a mixer.
    • Add butter a little at a time, taking care to stop the mixer with each addition to avoid a mess. The mixture will look very sandy.
    • Once all the butter has been added, add the egg yolk and continue to mix until ingredients are evenly distributed and contents is a consistent, sandy texture. It will come together but not completely.
    • Cover plastic wrap onto a work surface and dump dough mixture onto it.
    • Form dough into three logs about 1 1/2 in wide and 10 inches long.
    • Wrap each log in plastic wrap and refrigerate until completely chilled--20 minutes minimum.
    • Preheat oven to 350°F. Unwrap log and cut slices a little less than 1/4 inch (you can expect 4 cookies/inch).
    • Place on cookie sheet lined with a silicone liner or parchment paper. Bake for 9 minutes. Remove cookies from oven and let cool.
    • Frost cooled cookies with thickened ganache frosting and top with decorations.
    • Let ganache harden.
    • Emergency topping: Another way to frost these is to place 4 bittersweet chocolate chips on top of each cookie when they come out of the oven. Put back into oven for 1 minute, then remove. Using the back of a spoon, spread melted chocolate over each cookie, then sprinkle with peppermint shards. Remove to wire rack and let cool. Use only bittersweet chocolate chips for this.