The Black and White Cookie

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"Oh look Elaine, the black and white cookie. I love the black and white. Two races of flavor living side by side. It's a wonderful thing isn't it?"

- Jerry Seinfeld

...I love the black and white cookie too! This one in particular:
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Black & White Cookie*

Cookies:

2 1/2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2/3 cup buttermilk (shaken)

1 tsp vanilla essence

2/3 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

Vanilla Glaze:

2 cups icing sugar

1 tsp light corn syrup

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

2 Tbsp hot water

Chocolate Glaze:

4 ounces dark chocolate

3 Tbsp butter

1 Tbsp light corn syrup

Preheat oven to 180˚C.

Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together in a bowl. Mix the buttermilk and vanilla together in a cup.  

Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until they appear pale and fluffy, then add eggs and beat until well combined. Add the flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately in small batches at a low speed. Mix until smooth.

Spoon 1/4 cups of batter about 2 inches apart onto a large baking sheet. Bake in the middle of the oven until the tops of the biscuits are puffed and golden and spring back when touched - about 15-17 minutes. Transfer onto a rack to cool. 

To make the glazes:

Vanilla glaze: Whisk together all ingredients until smooth.

Chocolate glaze: Melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave for around 1 minute. Add the corn syrup and stir until smooth.

Once cookies have cooled, turn them bottom side up. Cover half of the cookie with the chocolate glaze, and half with the vanilla. Refrigerate for 20 minutes to set.

A few notes:

- When I made the first batch of these cookies, they ended up really puffy and didn't seem to spread out much in the oven, the second batch I thinned down with a little extra buttermilk and it worked much better. It also meant I ended up with lots more cookies than I would have done otherwise!

- Also - I got worried that the glazes were too thin to sit on the cookies, but my concerns were completely unfounded, they went on perfectly. The only thing I would do differently next time is I would cover all the cookies with the vanilla glaze first, and wait for it to set before adding the chocolate glaze to the other half. When I did both sides at the same time the chocolate glaze bled into the vanilla glaze and they didn't look quite as impeccably perfect as I'd hoped... but there's always next time!

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* Recipe with thanks to Joy the Baker, whose beautiful blog you can find here

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