How to Make Checkerboard Cookies

Dec

112013

Recently, it was our wedding anniversary and I had absolutely no idea what to get for my husband.

Absolutely. No. Idea.

So, knowing cookies are his favorite food, I offered to make him a batch of whatever kind he chose.

He chose these checkerboard butter cookies, a combination of my basic Butter Cookies recipe, plus a Mexican Chocolate variation. The recipe has variations galore—including Almond Five-Spice, Lemon Poppyseed, and Maple Brown Sugar—but you can make the checkerboard pattern with two batches of just one flavor and some food coloring.

The cookies themselves are drop-dead easy. The checkerboard pattern takes a little time, but there’s nothing hard about it.

Here’s how to do it:

The result is a snazzy-looking treat that’d be at home at even the fanciest cookie exchange.

I sliced and baked a couple dozen checkerboards for my husband, and gave him the rest as logs of dough for the freezer—so he can bake a new batch whenever the mood strikes.

He might even have enough to last until next year’s anniversary.

Not.