What does “pâte sablée” mean in French?

Une pâte sablée is the rich, crumbly pastry under a lemon tart. Sablée comes from sable, “sand”: you rub the butter into the flour until it looks like wet sand, and the baked crust breaks apart the same way. The famous sablé biscuit is named after that texture. Once you know sable, the word describes itself.

French names its basic doughs after what they look like. La pâte brisée (“broken dough”) is the plainer, less sweet shortcrust; la pâte feuilletée (“leafed dough”) is puff pastry, made of thin layers like pages (feuilles). Bakers also use the verb sabler for the rubbing-in step. In this recipe the pastry goes in crumbled: émietter une pâte sablée dans un cadre, pressed down flat, then baked under the lemon cream.