BLACK AND WHITE COOKIES

It's becoming something of a habit that I bake something on a Wednesday. Ok, so it's happened like 3 times but come on, humour me. Mum comes round on a Wednesday evening so it's nice to have something homemade to offer her. So far I have made Peanut Butter Cookies which were a failure because I overcooked them, ABC Muffins which were a failure because I only had gluten free buckwheat flour at home and they tasted like plastic, and Black and White Cookies, which tasted like heaven.

Black and White cookies are an NYC bakery staple, and loving lemon flavoured desserts as I do, they're so far up my street, they're jammed in my letter box. I found this recipe from Brown Eyed Baker and it appealed to me more than others, as the author mentions that she has tried and failed at other recipes for them until she landed on this perfected one.  

I actually halved the quantities the recipe states, just in case they didn't work out (my past track record wasn't in my favour) and that turned out to be a great plan, purely because I just wouldn't have had the oven space had I made the whole amount. These are BIG ASS cookies. I'm confident I made them the right size because the recipe states that you should get 20, and I halved the quantities and got a perfect 10. But next time I make them I will halve the quantity again but actually halve the size of the cookies too, to make 20 smaller ones. I am a self confessed greedy pig with a sweet tooth, and even I thought they were a little too big.

They were really incredibly simple to make, and as always I tweaked the recipe ever so slightly for my own taste and convenience. I added a little freshly grated lemon zest to the mix as well as the lemon extract the recipe calls for, and in all honestly , I would add even more next time. I know they're only supposed to have a whisper of lemon flavour, but whisper schwisper, I love me some lemon. I also used Green & Black's Lemon Dark Chocolate for the black half of the icing. This stuff is off the chain tasty, so if you can get your hands on it, I highly recommend it. Plus you only need a tiny bit for the icing, so you get to eat the rest of the bar as it is, win win! I got mine in Sainsbury's. Also, the recipe calls for corn syrup for the icing. Here in the UK, we don't do corn syrup, so I used agave nectar instead. No idea how similar that is to actual corn syrup, but it worked just fine. 

This little baking adventure also meant that I got to bust out my new apron for the first time. I'm not really an apron wearer, but I bought the cutest one ever while we were in Bruges. My mum LIVES in an apron, I'm not even kidding. It's a running joke in our family that she will sit down for Christmas Dinner wearing her trusty apron. She brings one to my house when she comes, just in case. Seriously. And I'm not gonna lie, now I have such a pretty one in my possession, I might be in danger of becoming my mother. Look...

This photo really doesn't do it justice, on my big, thick waisted body, it would be much better worn on a Betty from Madmen type, but until I get my act together and lose some weight, here it is. 

And without further ado, here are the cookies...

I forgot to put parchment paper down when I iced them, but look how pretty my work surface looked when I was done :o)

I also didn't wait for the first icing to set before doing the second half. I'm impatient like that. And hey, do you like my seasonally inappropriate cookie plate? This one was for my mum, and if you think about it, she pretty much is Santa, so....

xo