That’s “Brittany” as in “French Brittany” the westernmost maritime province of France.

Following my recent post on making Petits Pots de Yogurt With Strawberry Compote, Paula and Mary both asked about the golden cookie pictured next to the yogurt, and would I please provide the recipe?

Glad you ask.

The cookie is called Galette Bretonne in French and is a very simple cookie, totally unsophisticated: a real country cookie, really, with only a few ingredients and a pure butter taste (Butter from Brittany is renowned throughout France, and so are confections made with it). It’s similar to a short-bread cookie. Need I say, get the best butter possible? There, I said it.

You may use any cookie cutter shape you wish, but the traditional shape is round: I just use a small water glass to cut out the cookies. If you roll out the dough thinly, you’ll have lots of cookies; if you roll it out thick, you’ll have a lot less (but they’ll be very fat). Sometimes, I make thin cookies, sometimes I bake fat cookies. Depends on the mood. You just need to cook the thick cookies a little longer. I can make 4 dozen thin 2 1/4 ” (6 cm) cookies out of one batch or 2 dozen medium-thick cookies or 1 dozen thick cookies. Your choice…

The dry ingredients are measured by weight, not volume, as is typical of a French recipe and in grams. I won’t convert in ounces, because some of you – despite exhortations to the contrary – will read that as fluid oz and use cups. Also the recipe is easy to memorize in grams. Yep, time for you to get a scale! They are not that expensive and they come in really really handy – especially if you start baking for real. The liquid ingredients are measured by volume.

Butter Cookies From Brittany/ Petites Galettes Bretonnes Read more