Black and White Cookies

This weekend my boyfriend and I hosted a New York City trivia contest at our apartment.  He wrote all the questions and I made Big Apple themed desserts.  The first dessert that came to mind was black and white cookies.  Pat loves these cookies, and they just look so New York.  Until I moved to the city I’d never seen them, but here they are in every deli, bodega, and grocery store.  While easy to find, store-bought black and whites are frequently terrible (stale and dense).  This delicious recipe from America’s Test Kitchen couldn’t be better.  I first made them last year and the result was a delicious tender cookie with a perfect, shiny, not-too-sweet frosting.

Read the rest of this entry »

Berger Cookies

Last week one of my coworkers got a shipment of Berger Cookies, a Baltimore specialty, sent to work.  After one bite I knew I wanted to try and make them at home.  They are a soft cake-like cookie piled with a chocolate fudgy frosting.  Typically I prefer less rich desserts, but these were just so unusual that I was won over.  The actual recipe is a closely guarded secret, but I found numerous blog posts of different attempts at the recipe.  Rather than using any of these I decided I’d try to create my own.
Read the rest of this entry »