Huge New York Black & White Cookies
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What are Black & White Cookies?
Black & White Cookies are also known as “half moon” cookies. They are flat round cookies where one half of the cookie is topped with chocolate frosting and the other half is vanilla. The texture is light and soft almost like a cake, but they are indeed cookies!These cookies are super popular in New York City! However, based on my research, it appears that these cookies were quite popular outside of New York, and they are a large part of Jewish heritage, originating from Bavaria by German immigrants.
While I’ve never actually been to New York before, it’s definitely on my bucket list because of all the awesome food - from bagels to pizza to Levain Bakery Stuffed Cookies (I’ve got so many of those recipes in addition to the ultimate guide to those awesome massive stuffed cookies!) , the food culture just seems incredible! Comment below what food you love from New York! I go into more details how going outside can inspire you to recreate awesome dishes at home in my Making Cooking Fun!! free guide - and while I haven’t actually been to New York, watching food from there certainly inspires me, and I bet that can inspire you!
That being said, the holiday season is in full swing, and I’m sure you want to do tons of baking! While I don’t make desserts too often, this is definitely the time of year where I’m most inspired! The reason I chose to make these cookies is because I saw the movie The Week Of recently - actually it’s been one of my favourites lately and it’s been on repeat! I love the scene where the mom is serving those huge cookies and I just knew I had to try my hand at them! While there are quite a few recipes for Black & White Cookies around, I knew for a fact that I wanted to make them as huge as they are in the movie!
These Black & White Cookies are also famous from a scene in the sitcom Seinfeld and by Barack Obama, who referred to these as “unity cookies” back in 2008 as a metaphor for race relations.
If you want to follow along with me as I prepare these exciting Black & White Cookies, be sure to watch the video at the bottom of this post! I’d appreciate it if you subscribe to my YouTube channel if you haven’t already and don’t forget to hit the bell button so you receive all of the notifications when a new video recipe goes live! I love to share the video recipes to give you all the tools you need for success! Let’s get baking!
Why This Black & White Cookie Recipe works!
Great frosting: This recipe will show how to make the perfect black & white frosting!
Taste: We’ll achieve that fantastic soft cookie-cake texture
Efficient: This process won’t take too long, which makes these cookies an excellent holiday option!
Fun: Hellooo, who doesn’t love giant cookies? Everything about these cookies are so fun - the design, the frosting, the cakiness, and making big cookies!
What Do Black & White Cookies Taste like?
Unlike traditional cookie dough, New York City Black & White Cookies are made with what’s essentially is a vanilla cake batter. The insides are soft and the cakiness comes from the sour cream and buttermilk. Additionally, the outside of the cookie and the frosting have a sharp crispness, which give a great contrast. As expected, one side of the cookie features pure vanilla goodness, while the other side is dark and chocolatey. Of course, you are free to have both sides at the same time to enjoy the best of both worlds. My favourite bites are bites down the centre line!
Equipment for Black & White Cookies
Ingredients for New York Black & White Cookies
Remember, for all measurements and the full recipe instructions, make sure you scroll down to the bottom of this post for the FULL PRINTABLE RECIPE CARD! No matter how many cookies you want to make, all the ingredients get automatically adjusted for you!
For the Batter
Butter: Unsalted butter at room temperature so your batter gets creamier easier!
Granulated sugar: To make the cookies sweet of course!
Honey: For an even richer sweetness in the cookie, giving a cake-like taste.
Vanilla extract: Pure vanilla extract gives the best flavour, even if it’s a bit more expensive. I would avoid artificial vanilla.
salt: To enhance the flavours of all our other ingredients.
Buttermilk
Sour cream
Eggs
For the icings
Powdered sugar: Also known as confectioner’s sugar. This is what we’ll need to make the icing.
Cocoa powder: A must to get the dark colour! Use unsweetened Dutch processed cocoa powder for the rich black colour of the cookies. Natural cocoa powder will be too light.
Corn syrup: After researching other recipes, I learned that the corn syrup is not just for the sweetness of your icing but to get that perfect glossiness on it!
Buttermilk: We’ll add some buttermilk to the cocoa icing so that it smooths and thins it out.
How to make Huge Black & White Cookies
For the Cookies
Add the flour, baking powder and baking soda in a large bowl and mix well. In a bowl or the bowl of a stand mixture, add the butter and sugar. Beat the butter until the sugar is well combined, use the paddle attachment for a stand mixer.
Add the eggs and vanilla extract to the bowl and beat the eggs with the sugar and butter until they are well combined. Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed.
Gradually add flour, 1/2 cup a time, followed by the buttermilk. Once you've added the butter and added the last 1/2 cup of flour, add the sour cream and mix well.
Add the baking soda, the baking powder and salt, then mix. The batter should be really thick.
Preheat the oven to 350 F and line a half size baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper. Add 1/2 Cup sized portions of the dough to the baking sheet, making sure there is at least 2 1/2 inches of gap between each portion.
Wet your hands a bit and gently shape the cookie portions to ensure they are circular and have a smooth top - don't press down on the batter.
Bake for 12-17 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown on the bottom and very slightly browned on the top. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and let them cool down completely. Remember, the bottoms of the cookies will be the tops.
For the icings
Preparing the icing by combining the icing sugar, vanilla extract, water and corn syrup. Stir well until the mixture turns into a thick, smooth consistency and add more water little bit at a time if as needed.
On the bottoms of the cookies, the flat side, spread half of the cookie with the vanilla frosting using an icing spatula or the back of a spoon and then let the cookies chill for at least 1 1/2 hour for the icing to set.
Transfer 1/2 of the mixture to a separate bowl and add the cocoa powder along with more water or buttermilk and a touch of corn syrup. Whisk well until the chocolate frosting is thick and smooth as well and add more liquid if required.
Then, start icing the other half of the cookies with the chocolate frosting. Let the icing set for at least 1-2 hours.
Go on and have fun!
tips for Delicious Black & White Cookies
The dough should be chilled for at least 1-2 hours before baking, this is helpful to ensure the portions are easy to scoop out.
The most time efficient way to bake these cookies without chilling would be to use a quarter sized measuring cup to scoop out the portions and using wet hands to clean up the tops and the edges so that the cookies go in round and smooth.
Once the cookies are ready, they should have a slight springiness if you poke the top. The tops should also be lightly browned on the edges.
The bottoms are the tops so make sure to apply the frosting on the underside of the cookies to get a clean straight edge.
Finish apply the white frosting first and let it chill to ensure you have a solid straight line when it comes to apply the chocolate frosting, without blurring the middle line.
Let the cookies chill, preferably overnight before enjoying for the best experience.
Is there a substitute for buttermilk?
An easy substitute for buttermilk in the batter is to use whole milk. This will do a good job in helping to keep the cookies moist. Another option is to replace the buttermilk with entirely sour cream if you don’t have whole milk either.
Why are you using both sour cream and buttermilk?
You may have seen other Black & White NYC Cookie recipes use either sour cream or buttermilk. I decided to use both here because the combination of both really help to give the cookie a nice sourness like a cake, and they keep the cookies nice and moist. I really recommend you use the two together for the softest texture!
How to make Black & White Cookies smaller
This recipe shows how to make HUGE Black & White Cookies, inspired by the movie The Week Of! However, if you want to make them fun-sized, then that’s no problem at all! Just use a scoop, smaller than 1/4 Cup to fit the size you need.
Black & White Cookies Variations
The classic cookie is called a Black & White Cookie for a reason - ‘cause they’re black & white! However, if you’re making these for Christmas, you can customize the recipe to make them your own and more festive for the holidays! Here are some ideas:
Design: The standard Black & White Cookies just have a nice even division of the cookie with the two frostings. However, if you didn’t want such a clean design and wanted to get a little wild, you can do different designs! I would like to try the yin & yang design, as I do with my Yin & Yang Pancakes!
Food colouring: You could change the colours to be Red & White or Red & Green for Christmas by putting some green or red food colouring into the frosting!
Chocolate cookie: Our cookie base is vanilla, but if you’re a chocolate lover like me, try making a chocolate cookie base with cocoa powder!
Decorations: Get the kids involved and decorate the cookies with sprinkles or cookie icing!
How to store black & white Cookies
Simply store any leftover cookies in an airtight container or even better - in a cookie jar! You can store the cookies at room temperature for up to a week or in the fridge for up to two weeks.
Raw cookie dough will stay fresh in the fridge for up to two days, and baked cookies will stay fresh for about 1 to 2 weeks. Store raw cookie dough in a plastic bag, already rolled into dough balls. Store the baked cookies in an airtight container.
Can you freeze the black & White COokie Dough?
I would freeze only raw cookie dough and not baked cookies themselves because if you freeze cookies that are already baked, they will dry out! If you really need to, you can, but make sure they aren’t topped with the icing.
To freeze raw cookie dough, roll out your dough balls and first freeze the dough balls on a baking tray, covered with plastic wrap. Once the dough balls have been completely frozen, then transfer into a plastic bag. Raw cookie dough will stay good in the freezer for 1 to 2 months. To thaw raw cookie dough, place at room temperature or in the fridge.
More Cookie Recipes!
WATCH HOW TO MAKE New York Black & White cookies Here:
Let me know what you think of this recipe in the comments! If you’ve tried this recipe, be sure to post it on social media and tag it with #cookingwithanadi and mention me @cookingwithanadi. Thank you!