This is an old school recipe from one of my vintage German cookbooks. What’s great about it is it’s simple to mix up and you cancreate them in any combination of flavors and colors. Green and red for Christmas, Red and pink for Valentine’s Day, Lavender and Yellow for Easter, for example. They also make a great gift in the recipient’s favorite colors and flavors. Sports team, club or school color, you name it, the sky’s the limit.
Surprisingly, I did my first run of these cookies in simple chocolate and vanilla. I just wanted to get creating the shapes down. I was very pleased with the result and it was fun making the different styles out of the dough. This would be a good project to do with kids as well.
The four shapes are Zebra, Checkerboard, Coin and Snail.
With the leftover dough I made some marbled cookies.
They taste great, but with no many extract and flavor ideas, my mind is off and running to the next batch….
Ingredients:
- 3/4 Cup butter, softened
- 1+1/2 cups white granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2+1/2 cups flour, sifted
- 3 tablespoon cocoa powder
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper
- Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy.
- Add eggs one at a time and mix until blended.
- Add vanilla extract and salt.
- Add flour in thirds until just mixed in.
- Transfer half the dough to a separate bowl
- Add cocoa powder to mixer bowl and blend.
- Wrap each half of the dough separately in plastic cling film and refrigerate for at least an hour.
For the Snails:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Roll each dough out into a rectangle shape.
- Lay one on top of the other and trim the edges
- Starting from the shorter end, roll up tightly into a log shape.
- Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for a half hour.
- Remove from fridge and cut the log into slices.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for 10-12 minutes
For the Coins:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Roll one flavor of dough into a smooth log.
- Roll the contrasting flavor into a rectangle.
- Wrap the log with the rectangle and trip the excess dough.
- Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for a half hour.
- Remove from fridge and cut the log into slices.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Roll one color into a rectangle.
- Roll both colors each into 2 thin rolls.
- Lay the rolls out contrasting the color on the rectangle.
- Wrap the rolls with the rectangle and trim the excess.
- Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for a half hour.
- Remove from fridge and cut the log into slices.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes
For the Zebra Stripes:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Roll each flavor out into a rectangle.
- Stack one on top of the other.
- Cut into 4 strips about 1+1/2 inces wide.
- Stack one on top of the other until you have one high strip.
- Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for a half hour.
- Remove from fridge and cut the log into slices.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes
4 comments
What a FUN (not to mention, tasty) variety of cookies! I am especially am smitten with the snail and the zebra stripes!
The snails remind me of the pinwheel cookies my mom would bake with left over pie dough and cinnamon. These cookies sound great and all the different designs are fun.
I love these! I think the Zebra and Snail are my favorites. Oh, I so need to get some vintage cookbooks from other countries. I guess I need to keep an eye out when we go on vacation.
These are lovely! Thanks for showing us how to make so many different "looks" 🙂