Lisaopolis.comA Nurse's Journey to a Healthy and Balanced Life

It’s December already! I can’t believe it. It seems like it was just January a couple months ago. Christmas is just around the corner. That means it  is time to start the festive baking.
Our family has quite a few holiday recipes that we have made year after year, and they are always very popular.

One of my ultimate favorite Christmas delight is for black and white cookies. I made these cookies a couple days ago, and they have been a huge hit as usual. The recipe comes from the  Oetker German Home Baking cookbook by August Oeker Bielefeld (page 65). This recipe is one that wouldn’t dare morph in any way shape or form. I follow it to the book. I doubled it since it is so popular. Here is the recipe (the doubled version)

Black and White Cookies

Light Pastry
18 oz  all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
11 oz white sugar
3 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 tsp rum extract
2 eggs
9 oz butter or margarine (I always use margarine)

Dark Pastry
2 level tbsp cocoa
1 level tbsp white sugar
1 tbsp milk

For brushing
Egg white (if desired I usually don’t do this, but it works too).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl combine the flour, and baking powder. Make a well in the centre and pour in the sugar, vanilla extract, rum extract, and egg. Mix to form a thick paste. Cut in the margarine. Knead the dough to form a soft (possibly sticky ball of dough. Break the ball in half. Set one half of the dough in a separate bowl.
In one bowl of dough add the cocoa, sugar, and milk.. Knead until a dark chocolate dough forms. If the dough seems quite sticky cover it, and refrigerate it for about 30 minutes.

Cutting the formed cookie rolls (this is my mom's hand, she assisted with assembly of the cookies)

Form the dough into the following patterns:

For a pinwheel pattern: roll out two rectangles that are about the same size (one light and one dark). Lay the two rectangles on top of each other (if you find they don’t stick together well, then brush with egg white). Roll up the dough.

For a checkerboard pattern: roll out two snake like rolls of each color dough. Stick all the rolls together alternating colors. Pat the combined roll down on each side to  make it more like a square.

Cut the formed rolls into equal sized cookies on a cutting board with a very sharp knife. Place on cookie sheets. Bake in the preheated oven for about 12 minutes or until the bottom of the cookies are just starting to change to a very light color gold/brown.

Enjoy.