Red and white checkerboard cookies

You can refer to the post here, on how to make the cookie dough and tint it to the desired color. You can tint them any shade you please, but just ensure they are contrasting colors, so that the checkerboard pattern shows up clearly.

For the dough I used
Ingredients:
1 cup APF
1/3 cup sugar (castor)
7 tbsp cold unsalted butter

I made the crumbly mixture with the above, once for the white dough and once for the red dough.

I whisked together the following ingredients:

1 Egg Yolk
1 - 1.5 tbsp cream or whole milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt

This mixture was roughly 8 tablespoons.

I took 4 table spoons of this mixture aside and added the color to it.

To one portion of the mixture, I added the colored liquid and to the other I added the plain liquid. 

I wrapped the dough in butter paper and chilled it for a day. 

To make the checkerboard pattern:

1. Take the chilled white dough from the refrigerator and cut the dough in half.
2. Wrap and return one half of the dough to the refrigerator.

3. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into about ¼ inch thick, to make a rough rectangle of one side having 9 cm dimension. I got a square roughly 9x9cm.
4. Keep the sides of the rectangle roughly in line using a scraper or knife.
5. On the 9 cm side, mark out 9 strips of 1 cm each.6. Cut out the uneven edges of the rectangle. Return this trimmed dough along with the wrapped dough in the refrigerator.
7. Cut the rectangle into 9 strips along the markings. Ensure that the dough is cold when you do this, so the strips retain their shape.
8. Repeat the process with the red dough.
9. Cool the strips on the wax paper for 10-15 minutes in the refrigerator.

10. We have 9 red strips and 9 white strips. Take the strips and form the checkerboard pattern as follows: 

•  Take the strips red white and red, and apply the egg white on the sides. Place them together and make the first layer. 
• Next, take the strips, white red and white and apply egg white to seal them together. Apply Egg white on the first layer and place the second layer on top of the first. 
• Make the third layer using red, white and red.

11. We have now used of 5 red strips and 4 white strips. We still have 4 red strips and 5 white strips.

12. Make the second checkerboard log consisting of three layers, white-red-white, red-white-red, and white-red-white. Refrigerate the logs again.

13. Take the half-dough white from the refrigerator and roll into a thin 1/8 inch thick rectangle. Wrap the refrigerated second log with this strip.
14. Cut off the excess wrapping and trim the open ends of the log to form a neatly trimmed end. Be gentle so as to not skew the checkerboard pattern.
15. Return the wrapped logs to the refrigerator.

16. Take the chilled wrapped logs after 15-20 mins and cut into 1 cm wide cookies.
17. I got around 5 cookies from each log.

18. Line the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet.
19. Bake the cookies in a preheated oven of 160 degrees C or 325 F for about 10-12 minutes, or until slightly brown at the edges.

20. Cool for 5 minutes in the baking dish.

21.Transfer to a wire-rack to cool completely.

 Yummy Cookies are ready to be devoured.

Wondering what to do with the leftover dough and the scraps from the trimmings?

You can roll them into 1/6 inch thick and cut out into desired shapes using cookie cutters. I used up the red dough and the white dough leftovers and made about a dozen cookies in total. The slightly mixed colored dough from the checkerboard log trimmings, made a wonderful marble pattern when I tried to roll out and I used up that as well to make about 5 cookies. You can refer to the post here, to see how that turned out.

This is one of my entries to Suma's Cookie fest.


This is also one of my entries to Vardhini's "Bake Fest" Event. Here is the link to the event:
http://pumpkinfarmfood.blogspot.com/2011/12/bake-fest-new-year-event-2012.html
http://vardhiniskitchen.blogspot.com/p/bake-fest-hosting-schedule.html

Basic Cookie Dough

 I came across a basic vanilla cookie dough recipe on Baking911.com. There are ways to tint the cookie dough too while making it. It is pretty versatile and with some imagination, you can make any variety of cookies with the same basic dough. This dough can be refrigerated for 2-4 days and can be frozen for up to 2 months.


Plain vanilla cookie dough:
Ingredients:
2 cups APF
2/3 cup sugar (castor)
14 tbsp cold unsalted butter (3/4 cup)


1 Egg Yolk
1 - 1.5 tbsp cream or whole milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt

Method:
1. Mix the flour and sugar well, with a whisk or sift together 2-3 times to make it uniform
2. Cut the unsalted butter directly into the flour-sugar mix.The butter should be cold. After measuring, re-chill the butter if necessary.












3. Make a crumbly mix of butter sugar and flour.

4. In another bowl, beat the Egg yolk, cream, vanilla extract and salt.













5. Add the egg mixture to the butter mixture and make a smooth dough.
6. Wrap the dough and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.










This is just the procedure for making the dough.

If you want to add nuts or fruits, you could do it after step 5.

If you want to tint the dough, you should do the following instead of step 4.
4 a. (tinting dough). In a small bowl, add the color to the cream. Mix well until the color is uniform.
4. b.(tinting dough). In another small bowl, beat the egg yolk, vanilla extract and salt. Add the colored mixture in and mix until uniform.

After this step continue with step 5.














By this time the butter had softened and the dough was too soft to handle. I should have re-chilled the butter while I worked with the white dough. It is important that the butter is very cold.

To bake the cookie:
7. Unwrap the cold dough and on a lightly floured surface roll it into 1/4 inch thick and cut out various shapes using a cookie cutter.
8. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degree C, for 8-10 minutes, until lightly browned.

I used the above dough to make a checkerboard pattern cookie. You can refer to a step-by-step procedure to make the checkerboard patter in this post.
I used some left over red dough and white dough to make basic cookies.

The texture of these cookies is very smooth. They have that chewy and melt in the mouth texture. I felt the sugar could be increased a little bit, by 4 tablespoons maybe.