Checkerboard Cookies

Today's recipe is a time sink. It's the perfect diversion to fill a the Sunday afternoon, when you're stuck inside because of the drippy, windy weather that was supposed to be a category 2 hurricane.

Checkerboard Cookies
(adapted in parts from Baking Obsession, Joy of Baking and Martha Stewart)

I adapted this from a couple recipes on the internet, using a bit less sugar than Baking Obsession, keeping the dutch processed cocoa and baking powder (these don't rise much, at any rate) and adding in lemon zest, so that the white squares have a citrus-y gusto that competes with the deep dark valrhona cocoa that I used.

You could vary the flavors and colors of your batch. (See the notes in the recipe.)

2.5 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/4 cup dutch processed cocoa powder
1 tsp lemon zest

To start, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.

In another bowl, combine the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. Mix by hand or machine until the batter is light and fluffy. Once you've achieved a cloud-like texture that pleases you, drop in the egg and vanilla, beating well.

Add in the flour mixture, and stir until homogeneous.

Here's where the fun begins: Divide your dough in two. If you want to make the traditional black and white checkerboards you'll be adding lemon to one half, and cocoa to the other. You could also do this cookie with a few drops of different food coloring in each half, or different flavorings. (Coconut and lime might be a great choice.) The dough is a basic sugar dough, and it'll take almost any mix-in, from ground hazelnuts to instant coffee.

Knead the flavoring (in my case, lemon and cocoa, respectively) into your dough halves. Subdivide those portions (now you have four mounds of dough--two of each flavor) and wrap in plastic and chill for at least 2 hours.



















After the dough has chilled, take one portion of each flavor, and use parchment paper or wax paper to roll it out to a rectangle. You may have to play with the dimensions of your rectangle. Each of my rectangles was 9cm wide by 17cm long by 1cm thick. You're going to need to cut each of the two dough portions into 9 rectangular strips (1cm by 1cm by the length).


















I recommend chilling again after this step, to avoid breaking the delicate strips. Once the dough is firm again, start laying out your checkerboard. You'll be making two checkerboard logs.

Here's what the log will look like:
xox
oxo
xox

For log 1, use vanilla in place of x, and chocolate in place of o.
For log 2, use chocolate in place of x and vanilla in place of o.















Refrigerate the logs. While you have the fridge open, pull out the two remaining dough portions. Roll each portion out into a 17cm by 13cm rectangle. You'll be using this dough to wrap around each log and give it the nice uniform edge. 17cm is the length of each of my logs, and 13cm is the circumference of each log (12), plus 1cm to account for an inexact fit around the edges.

Once your dough is rolled out, pull out the log, and gently wrap the rectangles around their respective doughs.

Because each log is made up of an odd number of strips, there's a dominant flavor in the log. For example, log 1 has 5 vanilla/lemon strips and 4 chocolate strips. That log needs to be wrapped in the chocolate rectangle. Log 2 should be wrapped in the vanilla/lemon rectangle.

Refrigerate yet again. In fact, if you want, you can freeze this dough for up to 2 months before baking. Once the dough is very firm, and you're ready to go, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Use a sharp knife to cut the bar into 1.25cm-thick cookies. Bake about 12 minutes, until the bottoms of the cookies just start to turn golden.