Checkerboard Cookies 棋盘饼

I have never get my hands trying any checkerboard related bakes like checkerboard cake. The other day saw this checkerboard cookies in an old magazine, immediate decided to try this out since this is a type of cookies quite seldom peoples serve it during CNY.



After checking through few website still couldn't decide which recipe to try, some of the recipe requires very big quantity and some no recipe..there is a recipe in the magazine as well, but i don't have much confidence to try also. Finally i settled with Minty's Kitchen recipe chocolate almond cookies which requires to add some corn flour rather than just plain flour in other recipes..I use her recipe and modified accordingly where i can have two tone colours. This cookie requires some waiting time, as to firm up the dough for easy handling, so you have find a free day if you wish to try this out ^_^

I never use egg white to bind the dough together as this dough is quite wet, so everything stays together without any problem.

My kids complaint this cookie tasted not sweet at all, for me the taste is just nice as the taste is in less sweet side. If you would like to try out this recipe, i would suggest you to increase a bit of the sugar amount and reduce a bit of the corn flour and increase plain flour because my husband said it taste a bit floury..(these were the comments from my kids and hubby, personally i like this cookie a lot, not overly sweet, nice chocolate aroma, slight crunch and fine crumbs, my kind of cookies ^_^ )..

Checkerboard Cookies
(recipe source: recipe modified from Minty’s kitchen, by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover)

250g butter, room temperature
125g icing sugar
270g cake flour
100g corn flour
1 egg (large)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

30g cake flour
15g cocoa powder ( I use Vorlhona cocoa powder )

Method
1. Cream butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Beat in egg and vanilla extract.
3. Sift together flour and corn flour. Fold into the butter mixture and combine to form into a dough.
4. Divide the dough into two portions, add one portion with 30g cake flour, combine to form a dough. Add 15g cocoa powder into another portion and combine to form a dough
5. Flatten the dough and cover with cling wrap and chill dough in the freezer for 30mins until it is firm enough to work with.
6. Roll out plain and chocolate dough into rectangular of equal size, to 1cm thickness.
7. Place plain dough on top of chocolate dough and divide into equal size. Stack them together, cover with chill in the freezer until firm.
8. Measure 1cm and cut lengthwise into strips. Stack 3 strips to form a checkerboard pattern. Chill in the freezer until firm.
9. Cut crosswise into 6mm thick pieces, and place on sheet pans lined with baking paper.
10. Bake at 160C (fan forced) for about 18-20mins.
11. Cool the cookies on a wire rack and store them in an air-tight container.


** you may watch this video for the shaping instruction

I am submitting this post to Chinese New Year Delights 2013 hosted by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover