Black and White Cookies
Ingredients
* 1 tablespoon dry yeast
* 1 cup milk
* 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
* 1 3/4 cups sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1/4 teaspoon lemon extract
* 2 1/2 cups cake flour
* 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* Vegetable cooking spray (not flavored)
Directions
Add dry yeast to warm or room-temperature milk, let stand for 20 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Cream the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy.
Slowly add and combine the yeast mixture, and the extracts.
In a separate bowl whisk together the cake flour, all-purpose flour and salt and gradually add them to your mixture. Caution: Do not over mix, but make sure to keep your mixture homogenous.
Prepare a cookie sheet with pan spray and drop spoonfuls of dough 3 to 4 inches apart. Bake until the edges begin to brown, 20 to 25 minutes.
Let cool to room temperature before decorating.
Ganache:
* 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
* 1 pound good dark chocolate, chopped
* 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
* 1 pound good white chocolate, chopped
Place chocolate into 2 separate bowls, 1 for dark and 1 for white. Slowly boil the cream in 2 separate pots. Pour 1 pot cream over the dark and 1 pot over the white and let chocolate melt. Whisk each until smooth.
To decorate: While the ganache is slightly warm, have fun with it. Maybe some of it will even end up on the cookies!
Yield: 1 pint each