Mixed marriage calls for fortitude. Especially mine, which bonds until death opinionated New Yorker and opinionated non-New Yorker. The door to our room is posted with the crayon-earnest plea: Mom and Dad, pleas don’t fite.
Not that we sweat the shallow stuff, like Cubs versus Yankees or mortgage versus vacation. But when it comes to the deep, we don’t budge. Like the cookie. My husband, committed New Yorker, believes in the black-and-white. It is the oversize medallion conferred a shrink-wrapped place of honor in deli, bakery and sitcom. To the big-city child, it’s the big cookie.
A position I respect, but do not share. The black-and-white hardly qualifies as a cookie. It’s not crisp, like the Oreo. Nor pliant, like the chocolate chip. Nor chewy, like the fudge drop. It’s spongy. Like a sponge. The black-and-white comes coated with a plaster of wet, set confectioners’ sugar, as smooth and tasty as wet, set plaster. It’s the sort of cookie that inspires me to shrug. Or meddle.
Discouraged by the original’s bland base, I baked a chewy, chocolate version. Which my New Yorker found scandalous. Disheartened by the sugar-sweet glaze, I painted a melted chocolate version, which he found dry. I dipped a ganache-thick version, which he found ridiculous.
Eventually I caved, settling for a traditional vanilla puck, pleasantly cakey. I smoothed on melted meringue, half bright white, half dark chocolate. It isn’t the native New Yorker’s black-and-white. But the closely related white-and-black honors the original’s ethic of cooperation, as well as our own motto: Don’t fite.
White-and-black cookies
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Prep:
30 minutes
Bake:
14 minutes per batch
Makes:
24 big cookies
3
cups flour
3/4
teaspoon salt
1/4
teaspoon baking soda
2
sticks (1 cup) butter, softened
1
1/3
cups sugar
2
eggs
2
teaspoons vanilla
1/2
cup sour cream
Two-toned icing, see recipe
1
Mix:
Whisk together flour, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl. Cream butter and sugar in another bowl until fluffy, 2 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla; fluff 1 minute. Mix in half of the flour mixture. Mix in sour cream. Mix in remaining flour.
2
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Shape:
Scoop golf-ball-size mounds of dough on parchment-lined baking pans. With wet fingers, pat each ball into a 3-inch wide disk.
3
Bake:
Slide one pan into the center of a 350-degree oven; bake until cookies turn golden at edges and springy in the center, 14 minutes. Repeat with remaining pans. Cool.
4
Decorate:
Flip cookies to the flat side. Frost in white and black. A semicircle of each color would be traditional, but not required.
Two-toned icing:
Whisk together 1 cup sugar and 3 egg whites in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat until hot and frothy, 5 minutes. Whip, using an electric mixer at high speed, until fluffy and cool, 5 minutes. Divide into two bowls. For white: Mix in 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 – 2 tablespoons hot water, until glossy and spreadable. For black: Mix in 2 ounces melted unsweetened chocolate and 1 – 2 tablespoons hot water or coffee.
Provenance:
Dough adapted from “The All-American Cookie Book,” by Nancy Baggett. Nontraditional icing may scandalize the New Yorker, but delight everyone else.