“If I were a headmaster I would get rid of the history teacher and get a chocolate teacher instead.”

Roald Dahl, History of Chocolate

My dreams lately are tortured in the most pleasing way, practically masochistic in their duality.
I dream of home, and family, and happy, less burdened times. Yesterday morning, I woke up from what was apparently a mashup of Thanksgiving and Christmas in our cozy home and my heart ached and my soul groaned.
You see, I’m back at medical school, which is semi-remote (one of my classes is not remote as it entails seeing patients), and reporting live and utterly alone from my little box in Manhattan.
What a change, from being in a home with my family, with other people to cook for and eat dinner with and boss be around; with green space in every direction and two little kitty cats to pet; with room to stretch and lounge and explore; with few people and fewer noises and a sense of security, a fleeting sense of being a child again.

Every single bit of this bittersweetness is suffused with my own privilege and luck; lucky to have an apartment to return to in the city while being able to just study every day, with my job simply being to learn without burden of tuition; lucky to have a home upstate and family who are healthy and whole. So privileged to feel heartache because of loneliness only from saying “see you later.”

I am trying to reformulate these months in my pliable memories to be markers of my own fortunate happiness, of being afforded time with my family that I would never have otherwise had.
Yet still, I miss it bitterly and I long to go back. I think of home every day, even while so busy with learning, and at night, in my dreams, my pining heart threatens to overwhelm me.

A delicate balance of bittersweetness with an immodestly buttery texture, these Viennese smoked mocha sablés are refined hedonism in two bites.
Dark cocoa and espresso entangle in these cookies, each emphasizing the other, subtly punctuated by a whisper of smoked sea salt, and underlined, always, with a rich butter base.
Undulating waves enhance their crumbly bite. Seductively simple, they go quite as well with a cappuccino as with a strong cup of tea or a glass of cold milk.

The recipe really only calls for pantry ingredients: swap the smoked salt for sea salt and leave out the espresso if you have none and they will still be spectacular. They are classics for a reason.

Viennese Smoked Mocha Sablés
adapted from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé, written by Dorie Greenspan
Makes about 65 cookies

ingredients:
260 grams (1 3/4 cups plus 1 1/2 tablespoons) flour
30 grams (5 tablespoons) dutched cocoa powder
1 teaspoon instant espresso
250 grams (2 sticks + 1 1/2 tablespoons) butter, very soft
100 grams (3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons) confectioner’s sugar, sifted
two hefty pinches of smoked salt
3 tablespoons lightly beaten egg whites @ room temperature (lightly beat 2 large egg whites and measure out 3 tablespoons)
flaky salt, if desired, to top

directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment.
Fit a pastry bag with a medium open star pastry tip.

Sift the flour and cocoa together.
Whisk the very soft butter until light and creamy.
Add the sugar and salt and whisk until fully incorporated.
Whisk in the egg whites.
Whisk in the flour and cocoa in three additions, stirring only until just incorporated. Do not overmix.

Spoon about half of the dough into the pastry bag and pipe cookies that are about 2” x 1 1/4”, spacing them 1” apart on the baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until they are just set but are not hard or browned.
Top with flaky salt while warm.
Cool on a wire rack.