The Petit Beurre, or Véritable Petit Beurre, also known by the abbreviation VPB, is a shortbread cookie from Nantes, well known in France and especially in the Loire countries.
The noun Petit Beurre is a generic term, has a hyphen, and is often misspelled when referring to “cookies.”
It is called “Petibör” in Turkey and “Πτι-Μπερ”/ “PteeBer” in Greece.
It measures 2.56 inches in length, 2.13 inches in width, and 0.26 inches in thickness for a unit weight of 0.29 oz.
LU PETIT-BEURRE NANTES is the inscription stamped on the front, decorated with four ear-shaped corners and featuring twenty-four dashes in four rows of six.
The ingredients are simply butter, powdered sugar, water, flour, and a pinch of salt. I prepared them with lavender: PETIT-BEURRE À LA LAVANDE (round because I didn’t have a rectangular cutter 😅).
In honor of the lavender bloom in Provence from mid-June to mid-August.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Inexpensive
- Rest time: 3 Hours
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 20 cookies
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: French
- Seasonality: Spring
Ingredients
- 3.5 oz salted butter
- to taste lavender
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 pinch salt
Tools
- 1 Mold Petit Beurre Cookie Press Mold
Steps
Combine the butter, preferably salted, with dried lavender, powdered sugar, water, a pinch of salt, and work the mixture for about 20 minutes, then add the flour and baking powder.
Let rise in the refrigerator for 3 hours.
Roll out the dough and cut the cookies with the appropriate mold or with your own cookie cutters.
Brush with milk and bake in the oven at 356°F for 12/15 minutes.
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FAQ (Questions and Answers)
What is the difference between shortcrust pastry, pâte sucrée, and pâte sablée?
They are prepared with the same ingredients , but not in the same proportions.
The shortcrust pastry differs from pâte sucrée by having more butter.
Less rich in butter, but sweeter, the pâte sucrée is more compact and easier to spread.
It has a finer and more compact texture, but also drier.
This structural difference can also be explained by the fact that the ingredients are not incorporated in the same order.
The pâte sucrée is generally obtained with the so-called “creaming” method : whisk the butter until creamy before incorporating in turn the sieved powdered sugar, beaten eggs, sifted flour, and salt.
The butter and eggs must be at room temperature to avoid graininess.
Shortcrust pastry can be made with the “sanding” method only.
Sift together the flour and sugar, add the salt before incorporating the chilled butter previously cut into pieces, then the beaten egg.
Shortcrust pastry is more compact and has a higher butter content.
The pâte sablée, however, contains less sugar and its texture is “sandy” and crumbly.
