“If I hear “I’m hungry” one more time, I’m going to check myself into a nearby hotel and switch off my mobile phone!”
That’s me telling my four year old, who tells me he’s hungry every 15 minutes and the minute I rustle up something, he conveniently forgets about his hunger and runs off to rebuild a Lego castle for the 500th time.
But yesterday, I went out for a beautiful wine evening at The Sheraton #socialhour- it’s when people at Sheraton Hotels around the world come together for a toast at the decided time. What’s more, the wine served at each hotel across the world is from the same winery, for that week.
After multiple cabernet sauvignons rieslings, a good night’s sleep at my cousin’s place breakfast with a wonderful friend at the legendary Veena Stores, I’d had enough of me time and couldn’t wait to get back home to my mischief monger boy.
So today, when he said “I want cookies, mummy” – my guilt pushed me faster than a runaway train to start the oven and then think of something to bake on the spur of the moment.
It started with creaming some butter sugar, added flour and one thing led to the other. I ended up with these oh-so-cute brown cream cookies. When I posted the pics on Twitter Saffrontrail FB page, I was goaded into doing this quick post on how I made them.
I’m sorry I’m unable to provide very exact measurements, I hope it’s very close to the quantities I’ve used. Anyway cookies aren’t as unforgiving as cakes, so they should turn out okay! They only take 20 minutes, and I promise it will make your child (or the inner child in you) smile 🙂
Recipe for Half & Half Cookies
Takes under 30 minutes
Roughly 30 cookies of ~ 2″ diameter
Easy Eggless Choco-Vanilla Cookies
Ingredients
- 4 tbsps unsalted butter soft (if salted, reduce the salt by a pinch) heaped
- sugar sea salt (1/2 cup) + (1/2 tsp) - pulsed in mixer for few seconds
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract pure or powder
- 1/2 cup all purpose flour (maida)
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour (atta)
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- A few tsp water cold
- 1 to 2 tsps milk cold
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 180 C.
- Line a big baking tray with tin foil or parchment.
- In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar-salt mix with a spoon for 2 minutes, adding in the vanilla extract, until well combined.
- Sift the flours and baking powder together on a sheet of paper or mix it with a fork in a bowl and add it to the creamed mix.
- Mix well until it forms a dough, adding 1-2 tsp of cold water or milk to bind, if required.
- Divide roughly in half. Keep one half aside. To the other half, add the cocoa powder, a few drops of cold milk and knead gently to make a smooth but stiff dough (or you cant slice them).
- Now you'll have two rounds of dough, one white and one brown.
- Divide each into two logs, to get two white logs and two brown logs.
- Join one white log and one choco log and roll into a log on a clean smooth surface. It's not necessary, that the white and brown parts are exactly half and half, don't stress out over this-just make sure each log as some white and some brown.
- At this stage you could refrigerate for 15 mins or so and then slice into 1.5 cm thick slices or go ahead without chilling.
- Place each slice on the baking tray leaving some space between each cookie.
- Bake at 180C for 10-12 minutes, until the white parts start turning golden. At this point they will still be very soft, so don't overbake. They will crisp up as they cool.
- For chewy cookies, remove them a little earlier.
I made some cookies for my daughter yesterday and that was whole wheat butter cookie with some flax seed powder thrown in. Mine are not very crispy (because of the flaxseed) though. Will surely try this. They look great because of the black and white colors.
Beautiful they look!
Never work before breakfast; if you have to work before breakfast, eat your breakfast first. Ava
How can i pin this recipe ?
Perfectly done with Fab clicks…
Tried this yesterday and they turned out awesome. I baked them in the microwave mode and it took 4 min. Got my kids to help with the cocoa powder mixing and they enjoyed it.
lovely. I am definitely going to try these. Thanks.
The cookies look yum…. Can they b made with oil instead of butter n any non-dairy milk instead of regular milk ? My child has a dairy allergy.Thanks.
i Love cookies 🙂
Tried these as my cookie baking debut today. Turned out to be really yummy!!
Hi Nandita, I must say these cookies look really tempting. I’m definitely gonna try it this week end . I’m not sure if its ok to ask but i needed some guidance on using my new OTG. I’ve been baking for sometime now and all this while the oven i used was a small tiny little morphy richards one, which my hubby purchased during his bachelor days.The cakes i baked in that little oven used to trun out perfect . This little oven had no temperature setting just more the option button to bake and select time. So baking was so much fun and great . Now things turned when my hubby gifted me a new OTG last month on our anniversary Morphy Richards 52 ltrs. I must say what ever i tried in this new oven just got burnt. Dont know why. I tired to bake orange cookies and they all got burnt and yesterday i tried out Apple Cake and gosh the base of the cake along with the butter paper got terrible burnt and the centre was not cooked. I dont know what whet wrong.. could you guide me. Do you have any idea how to use the MR 52 Ltrs OTG and which option to choose for what and which rack etc..
What a delicious dish. Will surely try out soon. Thanks forsharing.View our blog http://www.indiaandworldcuisine.blogspot.in/
Hi Nandita, Another general query…is use of baking soda/cooking soda bad for health?