Sunday 14 June 2015

Yum

Classic CheckerBoard Cookies

I've always been dreaming of baking, when I first started to cook on my own. I used to be a helper in my mum's kitchen, so honestly i never liked cooking. Once got married and settled into a foreign country, I've had to cook each meal on my own. I never liked outside food much, because that was not made for my taste buds.
Once I started to learn to cook different things, I found myself attracted towards baking. Baking used to be a monstrous job for me one year ago. Now things have changed, I started baking cookies, cakes, muffins and so on and to my surprise, I enjoy doing it. It's much easier than hob cooking sometimes.

So lets come to our to the title of this post, Checkerboard cookies. I've been dreaming of making them since long time. I've gone through many many recipes from other bloggers and most of them were made using eggs, which I don not use in my baking.

One recipe I stumbled up is from Linda of RotiAndRice blog. She explained it quite impressively with all the steps. Assembling the strips were the basic part I was scared of but she explained it very well in writing as well as in video, I made these cookies watching her video this morning, that simple It was. I'm still not perfect on them and need a lot of practice, but they look adorable :)

So here my friends is the recipe, adapted from Linda's blog, with some changes on my choice of size, shape and taste. Try making them and I'm sure you all will love eating them with tea or coffee. Let me know your feedback by dropping the comments below................. Until Next Time, Happy Cooking Friends, Saumya



Ingredients:

Vanilla Dough:

Unsalted Butter                       - 1/2 cup / 1 stick softened
Granulated Sugar                     - 1/3 cup
Plain Flour / APF                     - 1-1/4 cup
Vanilla extract                          - 2 tspoon















Chocolate Dough:

Unsalted Butter                       - 1/2 cup / 1 stick softened
Granulated Sugar                     - 1/3 cup
Plain Flour / APF                     - 1-1/4 cup
Cocoa Powder                          - 2 tblspoon
Orange Extract                         - 1/2 tspoon



















Method:

For vanilla dough, cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl until well blended, about 2 minutes.

Now beat in vanilla extract.

Slowly mix in the flour on low speed.

Knead dough with hands to bring it together.
Turn dough onto a clean working surface.
Shape into a rectangle.

Wrap with cling film and chill for about 30 minutes.

For chocolate dough, again cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl until well blended, about 2 minutes.

Beat in the cocoa powder and orange extract.

Slowly mix in the flour on low speed.

Knead dough to bring it together.

Turn dough onto a clean working surface.
Shape into a rectangle.
Wrap with cling film and chill for about 30 minutes.

While the dough are chilling ,  Prepare a sheet of parchment or wax paper to shape the cookies.
Draw a 7inch x 7inch square in the middle of parchment or wax paper.

When both of the dough are chilled, remove from refrigerator.
Place a sheet of the parchment paper with the drawn side of the 7in x 7in square facing down on your
work surface.
Unwrap dough and place in the middle of the 7in x 7 inch square.
Then place a sheet of plastic wrap on the top of dough.

Roll out dough to the outline of the 7in x 7in square.

Use a knife or spatula to push dough into the square so as to minimize wastage.
Do the same for the chocolate flavor dough.

Remove the plastic wrap and cut the dough into three equal width slabs.

Place three slabs of dough, alternating vanilla and chocolate dough one on top of the other.

Gently press the slabs together, so that they stick together.

Cut each slab lengthwise into 3 strips of equal width.

Rearrange the strips of dough to create 2 slabs forming 9 small rectangles crosswise. Simply alternate the colours.

Wrap each slab with plastic and refrigerate for another 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).
Remove dough from refrigerator. Unwrap the dough and slice each log into ¼ inch thick slices crosswise.

Place onto nonstick baking sheet and bake for about 12 minutes. As there were more cookies than my baking tray can occupy, I freeze rest of the dough.

Remove and let cookies cool for 5 minutes before transferring onto a wire rack to cool completely.








These cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. I made another batch of 15 and stored the cookies in a jar to treat my kids again with their favourite milk shake. 



Recipe with thanks adapted from Roti n Rice at http://www.rotinrice.com/2014/10/checkerboardcookies/. I did some changes according to my taste and choice of size of the cookies.

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