Day 8: Black and White Cookies

Black and White Cookies are classic christmas cookies, at least in Germany. 
The first time I made them, I used a recipe out of a baking book I got as a present by my late grandma. This was my very first baking book and I still use it sometimes, and I got it when I was nine.
Thanks to this book, I really got into baking. 
Also those cookies are easy and, most important, yummy. It's fun to do those with kids, because you can do different shapes and looks with those and the dough is so good, and children just love noshing on dough.

For the Black and White cookies you'll need:

2 cups+1 Tbsp. (250g) Flour
1 Tsp. Baking powder
Pinch of Salt
Pulp of one Vanilla Bean
1/2 cup(120g) Sugar
1/2 cup(120g) Butter, cut into cubes
1 Large egg

For the chocolate dough:
2 Tbsp. Dark Cocoa powder
2 Tsp. Milk

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into a large bowl. Scrape out the pulp of the vanilla bean and add this to the other ingredients.
Add the butter and the egg.

2. Either with your hand or with the dough of an electric hand mixer, process the ingredients into a dough.
Cut dough in half, wrap one part into plastic and put into the refrigerator.
Mix the cocoa powder with the milk.
Make a mold into the other dough part and pour in the cocoa mixture.
Knead until the dough is dark in color and it has a beautiful chocolaty taste.
Also wrap in plastic and refrigerate with the light dough for one hour.

3. Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C.
Take both doughs out of the fridge.
Cut of pieces of the dough and knead for a few minutes until it is soft again.
When you make Black and White Cookies you can be creative. You can make a checkerboard design, or you can roll both parts out, coat one part with a thin coat of milk and place the other dough on top. Roll up and refrigerate for another 30 minutes, before cutting it into slices.
Or you can just mix both dough together so that you have a marble cookies. When you do that, roll out the dough into a sausage and refrigerate also for 20 minutes before cutting it into slices
No matter what you do, bake the cookies for 15-20 minutes.

 Enjoy with a glass of milk or a nice hot cocoa.

XOXO Owlicious