Black and White Cookies

I'm missing New York a bit today.

Black and White Cookies

I didn't have cake flour so I just used 100% all purpose flour. It worked okay, but my cookies were a bit lumpy instead of seriously smooth like Deb's. Some of the cookies I baked later on in the batch were smoother and thinned about better than the first few so I'm not entirely sure if the lumps and thicker cookies were a result of the flour or not but I would guess that it is. If you can get your hands on cake flour then definitely use it - if not, it will still work my way.

I used my large cookie scoop and it yielded about 20 very large giant cookies (the size of one you would buy in a deli).

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), at room temperature
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon lemon extract
2 1/2 cups cake flour
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/2 to 2/3 cup water
3 ounces very bitter or unsweetened chocolate
1 teaspoon honey
1 to 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa (to help achieve that dark black color)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray 2 baking sheets with nonstick spray, or line with parchment paper.

2. In large mixing bowl, combine sugar and butter. Mix by machine or hand until fluffy. Add eggs, milk and vanilla and lemon extracts, and mix until smooth.

3. In medium bowl, combine cake flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt. Stir until mixed. Add dry mixture to the wet in batches, stirring well after each addition. Using a cookie scoop, place heaping spoonfuls of the dough 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake until edges begin to brown, 18 to 20 minutes. Cool completely.

4. Boil a cup or so of water in a small pot. Place confectioners’ sugar in large, heat-safe mixing bowl. Gradually stir in enough boiling water to the sugar to make a thick, spreadable mixture. Err on the side of caution because a too-thin frosting is hard to undo. Leave remaining boiling water on the stove.

5. Spread frosting on half of the flat side of each cookie. Once all cookie halves have been frosted, place the bowl of the remaining frosting over the hot water and bring it back to a simmer (creating a double-boiler). Stir in the bitter or unsweetened chocolate until melted, as well as the honey. At this point, depending on the chocolate you used and your preferences, you might find the chocolate color to be a little lighter than the “black” of a black-and-white cookie. If so, I find that a tablespoon or so of cocoa mixed in darkens the color nicely.

6. Ice the remaining half of the cookies with the chocolate frosting. I find that the chocolate–especially with cocoa in it–is especially prone to getting too dry, so don’t worry about whisking in an extra teaspoon of that hot water from time to smooth it back into a shiny frosting.

7. Let the frosting set. Store in an airtight container. These cookies keep for a few days, but the texture will change a bit after day two. Personally I kind of like the way they taste a few days old. The frosting really sets and the cookie has a touch of "stale" texture - it reminds me of the real ones that I used to buy in the delis at home ;)