[Photograph: Elizabeth Barbone]
Black and white cookies, the popular New York City treat, are also found in bakeries in upstate New York with one big difference: around here they’re often iced with buttercream instead of poured fondant. I can almost hear some black and white cookie purists saying, “That’s heresy! Buttercream icing does not belong on a black and white cookie!” To that I say, “Regional cuisine FTW!”
One area of common ground between the upstate/downstate black and white cookies is the size. These are big cookies. You need about a half cup of batter per cookie to achieve the classic size of a black and white cookie. Of course, you don’t need to make huge cookies. Diminutive black and white cookies are cute–and really easy to eat. If you prefer small cookies, reduce the amount of batter you use per cookie. For smaller cookies, watch the first pan to determine the correct baking time for the cookies. (I found that two tablespoons of batter took about 15 minutes.)
Bowing to my upstate roots, this recipe uses buttercream to finish the cookies. For a neat divide between the black and white of the cookie, first ice half the cookie with vanilla buttercream and then ice the remaining half with chocolate. Chocolate buttercream neatly covers the vanilla icing where the two meet.
