Cookies, Black & White by zen

[BakerAunt]

Cookies, Black & White
Submitted by KitchenBarbaria... on June 09, 2015 at 1:02 am

I originally had bookmarked KAF's "official" recipe for this, but upon closer perusal discovered it is using the KAF AP flour - and then to top it off, a user review that noted the biscuit-like rather than cake-like texture garnered a snarky response from a KAF employee! SERIOUSLY! It uses practically-bread flour- of course the texture is off!
.
SO - I went and found a recipe for Black & White cookies that uses the proper flour to start with. And here it is, from the Brown Eyed Baker (suitably reworded so as not to violate copyright).

Yield: 24 cookies
Source: http://www.browneyedbaker.com/black-and-white-cookies-recipe/

Cookies:
4 cups cake flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
1¾ cups granulated sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon lemon extract
1 cup milk

Icing:
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
⅓ cup water
¼ cup light corn syrup
5 cups powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1) Preheat oven to 375F

2) Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together.

3) Cream together butter and sugar on med speed or slightly higher in your mixer, until light and fluffy. Too much speed may cause the butter to melt and ruin the texture of the mixture, so don't turn the speed up too high.

4) Add eggs and the vanilla and lemon extracts and mix to incorporate.

5) Alternate adding flour and milk in thirds. BEB does this in 4 steps (quarters) for the flour and 3 (thirds) for the milk, but I just do both by thirds, YMMV. Mix just to incorporate - do not over beat! It will make the cookies tough.

6) Scoop about 2" apart onto a lined or greased cookie sheet. I use teflon oven film (Super Parchment or Pan Pal Pan liners); if you grease, use vegetable shortening rather than butter as the butter may tend to burn or crisp the bottoms of the cookies. BEB used a 1/4 cup scoop - I used the one I use for making pancakes (2 scoops = 1 pancake).

7) Flatten each cookie slightly to make a 2" to 2.5" circle.

8) Bake until the cookies set up and the edges are golden brown, about 20 minutes.

9) Remove pan from oven and let cool on the pan for 2 to 3 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

ICINGS
1) Melt the chocolate CAREFULLY so it doesn't seize. I do this in a double boiler. BEB suggests doing it in the microwave, but this has never worked consistently for me. See her website (link provided above, under SUMMARY) for her directions for how to do this, but I can only melt chocolate in a double boiler if I don't want it to seize. You can also make a chocolate icing using cocoa powder instead, just look for a recipe for boiled chocolate icing to find one you like - then you won't have to worry about tempering bar chocolate.

2) Bring water and corn syrup to a slow boil in a med saucepan; remove from heat.

3) Stir in vanilla

4) Whisk in powdered sugar until smooth.

5) Take 3/4c of this mixture and whisk into your tempered chocolate.

6) Spread 1/2 of each cookie with the vanilla icing - the icing should be liquid enough to dribble a bit if you tilt the cookie. She suggest doing this on a wire rack with wax paper underneath to catch any drips.

7) If the icing starts to get too stiff, stir in 1 tsp at a time of warm water until it thins back out some.

8) Go back and spread on the chocolate icing as above, watching the consistency.

9) If it gets too stiff, put the top part of the double boiler back on the bottom part and heat it up to re-melt the chocolate (or handle according to instructions if you chose an alternate recipe for the chocolate icing). If its still too thick, add 1 tsp of water at a time as above to thin it out.
10) Place back on a wire rack to set the icing for 1 hour.

NOTE: If you bake an entire batch of these, that's a lot of wire racks needed to let the icing set up. I don't have that much wire-rack acreage, so I make 1/2 recipe. Besides - the 2 of us can't really eat 2 dozen cookies in a reasonable amount of time anyway, LOL!

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