Half Moon Cookies
Black and white cookie's underrated brother needs some recognition.
The comforting ginormous bakery-sized cookies of the East Coast need a firm reintroduction. Half Moon Cookies are the forgotten relative of the famous black and white cookies, but taste way different. With a vanilla-infused cakey crumb and a hefty frosting coating on the top, you’ll realize that up until now, you’ve been short-changed with all other cookies out there.
Now many of you may be thinking — hey, aren’t these black and white cookies? They have similar appearances, but the taste and textures are miles apart. New York City is associated with black and white cookies which have a flatter lemon-flavored cookie base and have a thin donut glaze on top. Half Moon cookies — which are connected to upstate New York and New England — have a vanilla or chocolate-flavored cookie base with thick portions of buttercream-like frostings on top.
These cookies are far from your average cookie. This dough is less of a dough and more like a thick batter. After creaming the butter and sugar, you drop in a few eggs with vanilla, and then slowly add the dry ingredients alternating with the buttermilk. It almost looks like a cake batter, but this is exactly what you want.
To get the right shape, use an ice cream scoop to portion out the batter. To make sure you get all the batter out of the scoop, spray the inside of the scoop with some baking spray.
Don’t be skimpy on space, these cookies expand, so they need a little breathing room. After a brief stint in the oven, they’re cooked through. Don’t try to look for golden spots on the top, you’ll know that the cookies are done when they start to get a little golden around the edges.
When it came to icing these Half Moon Cookies, I took inspiration from black and white cookies and made the vanilla frosting smooth and shiny with a bit of corn syrup. The chocolate portion is super simple. The deep chocolate flavor comes from cocoa powder, but it’s amplified with a bit of dissolved espresso powder. But that’s as far as I deviated from the original Half Moon Cookie format.
With one bite of these cookies, you’ll wonder how you’ve eaten any other version. The texture is bouncy, soft, moist, and just a touch cakey, making it light and delicate to eat. Both the chocolate and vanilla frostings give it enough sweetness and seal in the moisture of the cookies, so they’ll keep for a few days, not sure how they could last that long though!
Half Moon Cookies
For the cookies:
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, plus 1 large egg yolk, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoons buttermilk
For the frosting:
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 3 to 4 tablespoons water
- 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
- 1 teaspoon milk
- 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon espresso powder (optional)
To make the cookies
- Preheat oven to 325°F and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper, set aside.
- In a small bowl combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, set aside.
- In another bowl cream the butter and cream until light and airy, about 2 to 3 minutes, scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.
- Beat in the egg and egg yolk, mixing well until fully incorporated, about 30 seconds to 1 minute. Add in vanilla.
- With the mixer settings on low, gradually add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl again to thoroughly combine.
- Using a medium-sized ice cream scoop that’s been greased with baking spray, portion out the cookie dough onto the cookie trays, making sure to leave at least 2 inches of space between each cookie.
- Bake until the edges are slightly gold, the top may still be pale in color but cooked through about 10 to 12 minutes.
- Let them rest for 5 minutes on the trays before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
To make the frosting:
- In a large bowl combine powdered sugar, water, corn syrup, milk, and vanilla, whisk well to combine. Divide the frosting into two portions.
- Into the divided portion add cocoa powder and espresso powder, whisking to incorporate completely.
To assemble the cookies:
- Use an offset spatula (or a big soup spoon) to spread the vanilla frosting on one side and the chocolate frosting on the other side. You can eat immediately or let the frostings set for 20 minutes before serving.
Recipe adapted from Upstate Ramblings