Aromatic Happy Home: Checkerboard Cookies

Aren’t these so much fun? My husband loves playing chess so much that I had to break out few of the chess pieces into the picture. I wanted to make something special and something different for my husband. After I made these cookies, he looked at me thinking “how did you do that?” These cookies perfectly fit the description to the fullest extent.

Ever since I saw this recipe, I always wanted to try it out. It was so much fun to follow the various steps and see those neat little checkerboards appear at the end. And they taste so good too!

Recipe inspired from http://www.rotinrice.com/

Ingredients:

Vanilla Dough

Unsalted Butter	½ stick
Vanilla extract	1 tsp.
All-purpose flour	5/8^th of a Cup
Powdered sugar	¼ Cup

Chocolate Dough

Unsalted Butter	1 stick
All-purpose flour	5/8^th of a Cup
Powdered Sugar	¼ Cup
Cocoa powder	1 Tbsp.

Method:

For Vanilla dough:

Take butter (room temperature) in a big mixing bowl. Add sugar and cream them together until well blended. Add vanilla extract and blend them with spoon. Gradually mix in the flour. Knead dough to bring it together. Place the vanilla dough in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

For chocolate dough:

Take butter (room temperature) in a big mixing bowl. Add sugar and cream them together until well blended. Add cocoa powder and blend them with spoon. Gradually mix in the flour. Knead dough to bring it together. Place the cocoa powder in plastic wrap and chill it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Prepare 4 sheets of parchment or wax paper. Draw 3.5*3.5 inch square in the middle of 2 of 4 sheets. When both types of dough are chilled remove it from the refrigerator.

Place a sheet of parchment paper with down side of square facing down on your working surface. Unwrap the vanilla dough in the middle of the square .Place another sheet on the top (without drawing).Roll out the dough to the outline of the square. To minimize the wastage, Use a flat knife or a spatula to push the dough into the square. If necessary, trim the dough.

Remove the top sheet and cut the dough into three slabs of equal width. Do the same process for chocolate dough.

Place the three slabs of dough alternating vanilla and chocolate dough one on top of the other. Gently press them together. Cut each slab lengthwise into 3 equal strips.

Rearrange the strips of dough to create 2 slabs forming 9 small rectangles crosswise.

Wrap each slab with plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit .Remove the dough from refrigerator. Unwrap the dough and slice each log into ¼ inch thickness slices crosswise.

Place onto a non – stick baking sheet and bake for 12 minutes per batch.