Black and White Cookies

Amarante

Fri, Mar 17 2017, 1:22 pm

A bit of a potchke but these freeze well and what is more the quintessential Jewish cookie?

Very Happy

BLACK AND WHITE COOKIES

Excerpt From: Shoyer, Paula. “The Holiday Kosher Baker.

Makes 40

Black and whites cookies are actually more cakelike in texture than a cookie and are covered half in vanilla icing and half in chocolate icing. Everyone has a favorite side. You can find black and white cookies everywhere, all year long, although my Philadelphia mother-in-law, Lillian Shoyer, will always call them “New York cookies.” In his tome on the history of food in Manhattan, New York City Food, Arthur Schwartz writes that no one knows who invented black and white cookies, but he suspects someone created them as a way to use up leftover yellow cake batter. Be careful not to overbake these cookies, as they should be light-colored. You really need a small ice cream or cookie dough scoop to create the perfect shape. Otherwise, you can use two spoons, but when done, the cookies will not sit as nicely on the platter.

Cookie
1 cup (200g) sugar
½ cup (1 stick; 113g) margarine
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
zest of one lemon (2 to 3 teaspoons)
1¾ cups (280g) potato starch
¾ cup (100g) matzoh cake meal
1 teaspoon baking powder
dash salt
⅓ cup (80ml) almond milk

Icing

⅔; cup (130g) sugar
½ cup (120ml) water
1½ cups (180g) confectioners’ sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice (from zested lemon)
2 tablespoons boiling water
3½ ounces (100g) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped into ½-inch (1.25-cm) pieces

PREHEAT OVEN to 325°F (160°C).

To make the sugar syrup for the icing

PLACE THE SUGAR and ½ cup (120ml) water into a small saucepan over high heat. Bring to a rolling boil, stir to dissolve the sugar and boil one minute. Pour into a bowl and cool for 30 minutes.

To make the cookies

PLACE THE SUGAR and margarine into a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until creamy. Add the eggs, vanilla, and lemon zest, and beat until combined. Scrape down the bowl and mix well.

IN A SEPARATE BOWL, whisk together the potato starch, cake meal, baking powder, and salt. Add half the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix well. Add the almond milk and mix well. Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix gently until combined. You will have a thick batter.

COVER TWO COOKIE SHEETS with parchment paper or bake in batches. With a cookie dough scooper or small ice cream scoop, scoop up batter and place it on the cookie sheets, about 1½ to 2 inches (4 to 5cm) in diameter and about two inches apart. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until the edges of the bottoms start to color. The top of the cookies should remain light. As soon as the cookies are out of the oven, use a spatula to move the cookies onto a wire rack to cool. These cookies are best iced as soon as they are cool.

To ice the cookies

ICE THE WHITE SIDE first. Place the confectioners’ sugar into a medium bowl. Add two tablespoons boiling water, vanilla, and lemon juice and whisk well. If the mixture is too thick to spread, add the simple syrup to it by tablespoons until the consistency is thick, but still spreadable. Use a small metal spatula or knife to scoop up 1 to 2 teaspoons of icing and spread it on half of the flat bottom of each of the cookies.
USE YOUR FINGER to rub off any extra white glaze from the edges. The icing will thicken as you ice the cookies and you will need to add some sugar syrup to make the icing smoother. If the white icing gets too loose, whisk in a tablespoon of confectioners’ sugar. Let dry for a few minutes before icing the chocolate side.

MELT THE CHOCOLATE, either over a double boiler or in a microwave oven, for 45 seconds and stir, heat for another 30 seconds and stir, and then heat for 15 seconds more, or until all the chocolate is melted. “Whisk in simple syrup, two tablespoons at a time, until the mixture is smooth, shiny, and spreadable. If the chocolate icing gets too thick to spread, whisk in a tablespoon or more of simple syrup to get the consistency you want. Spread the 1 to 2 teaspoons of the chocolate glaze carefully on the other half of the cookie, moving the chocolate icing back and forth across the cookie to create a straight line between the chocolate and vanilla sides. Let the icing dry for 30 minutes. Store the cookies in an airtight container for up to two days or freeze for up to three months.