Checkerboard Cookies

The holidays are here! Baking Christmas cookies is my favourite holiday tradition to share with family and friends. Checkerboard Cookies are festive, fun to make, delicious, and Christmassy! These colourful cookies will really look good on any holiday table!

You will keep people guessing as to how you made them. They might look a little tricky, but let me show you how easy it is to create this colorful checkerboard pattern in cookie form.

Let's spread cheer and joy this season by baking these cookies. So let's get started...

Yields about 25-30 cookies

Ingredients

200g / 1 2/3 cups All purpose flour

30g / 4 tbs corn flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

125g / 1/2 cup butter

70g / 2/3 cup icing sugar

2 tbs milk

Pinch of salt

Red and Green food coloring gel

Option:
Instead of 2 tbs milk you can add 1egg yolk.

Equipment

Parchment paper
Hand mixer
Mixing bowls
Measuring spoons
Measuring cups
Baking pan
Wire cooling racks
Sharp knife

Add butter into a large mixing bowl. Beat the butter using a hand mixer until smooth (about 1 minute). You can also use a stand mixer. Cream butter and sugar together until well blended, about 2 minutes.

Beat in milk and vanilla extract until mixed in. If you are adding egg yolk, add it here instead of milk.

In another bowl whisk together flour, corn flour, baking powder and salt. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and beat just until incorporated. Knead dough to bring it together. In case the dough is dry add a few drops of milk to bring it together.

We have to divide the dough into 2 equal halves. My dough weighed 430 grams. So each half was 215 grms. To one half I added 2 drops of green edible gel colour. Knead until well blended. Add more color until you achieve the desired color. To the other half I added 2 drops of red edible gel colour. Repeat process with the red color. Flatten out each half of the dough into rectangles. Cling wrap each half of the dough in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigirator for about 30 minutes till firm.

Draw a rectangle of 17 cm x 15 cm on a parchment paper. Place the chilled green dough in the centre of the rectangle. Fold the parchment paper over the dough along the lines drawn. Roll out the dough to fill the rectangle. Repeat the process for the red dough. Chill the doughs again in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

Take out the chilled doughs. Brush the top of the green dough with water. Place the red dough on top of the green dough. Press gently to stick. Chill the dough in the refrigirator for 4 hours.

Trim the sides of the rectangle so that the sides are exactly 16cm x 15 cm. Mark every 1 cm using a sharp knife and ruler along the 16 cm sides of the rectangle. Using a sharp knife and a ruler, slice 16 strips.

Brush the sides of the strips with water. Place 3 strips side by side with alternate colours on top and lightly press together to stick. Brush the top with water. Place 3 other strips on top with alternate colours. Use 8 strips to form a log. From the front you should be able to see a 4 x4 square of alternate colours. Repeat the proces for the other log using the rest of the 8 strips.

Chill the logs overnight to firm up. We do this so that dough does not lose shape while cutting and we can get perfect looking checkerboards. Chilling is very important here.

Take out 1 log at a time. Using a sharp knife slice 1/2 cm thick pieces to get 15 cookies. Place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. It’s so much fun to see the red and green checkerboard cookies as you slice them up and place on a cookie sheet. Chill the baking sheet with cookies for 15 min in the refrigirator.

This is done so that the cookies don't spread while baking

Preheat the oven to 170 deg C / 340 F while the cookies are chilling in the refrigirator. Bake each batch of the cookies for 15 min. The bottom of the cookies should slightly brown. Remove baking sheet from oven, and let the cookies cool for 2 minutes.Transfer them to a cooling rack.

Spread cheer this season by baking these cookies for your friends and family