Now on to the next challenge: Sunshine's Killer Zebra cookies
Here’s hoping it won’t take a
whole year like the cinnamon rolls. Getting those right nearly sank me.
As I have previously written, I am not alone in my obsession. One person named her company "Killer Zebras" after Sunshine.
Killer Zebras
are based on Pinwheel cookies, i.e. vanilla and chocolate cookie dough: in the
case of pinwheels, the dough would be in a spiral pattern.
My trip down the
Internet rabbit hole plus several cookbooks, has taught me that these can be
formed into stripes (aka simple zebra pattern), crazy stripes (i.e. Killer
Zebras), marbled, checkered, oh yes…the list goes on and on. Robin McKinley
writes that she based them on ”Harlequin” cookies, which are the
above-mentioned cookies in yet another pattern:
"Killer Zebras certainly exist. I’m also bemused that this, with Death of Marat, are probably the two that get asked for the most often. Death of Marat, as above, is vexed. But I can absolutely give you Killer Zebras, with perhaps some head-scratching and furrowedness of brow, because they’re really only slightly dressed-up what-you-call-’em, I think I first met them in an old Betty Crocker cookbook under the name Harlequin Cookies. You make a basic cookie dough, divide it in half, add chocolate to one, and then roll each out and squidge ’em together. But I’ll post that recipe. One of these days."
I wish.
"Killer Zebras certainly exist. I’m also bemused that this, with Death of Marat, are probably the two that get asked for the most often. Death of Marat, as above, is vexed. But I can absolutely give you Killer Zebras, with perhaps some head-scratching and furrowedness of brow, because they’re really only slightly dressed-up what-you-call-’em, I think I first met them in an old Betty Crocker cookbook under the name Harlequin Cookies. You make a basic cookie dough, divide it in half, add chocolate to one, and then roll each out and squidge ’em together. But I’ll post that recipe. One of these days."
I wish.
This blogger has a great description of how to make Zebra cookies (although I wonder about her recipe...we'll see once I start my testing....) Killer zebra recipe
Since my
cinnamon roll spread sheet was the key to coming up with the ultimate recipe, I
decided to do the same for the pinwheel cookie recipes. I found recipes in
three of my cookbooks, and compared these with regular shortbread, as well as
with recipes I found online, including Swedish versions of these cookies (so famous they got their own stamps last year! See the pinwheels, plus the checkered version?!). I have to admit that I do not own a Swedish cookie cookbook and I must get one ASAP since the recipes online are dubious.
It quickly became obvious that
the basic recipe for pinwheels differs from shortbread in that there is more
sugar, plus the addition of eggs and baking powder, as well as vanilla and
cocoa.
The ratios differed
in the recipes but the most common amounts were:
1 cup butter
1.5 cups sugar or 1.3 cups superfine sugar (perhaps powdered sugar would be ok?)
2 eggs
2.5-3 cups flour
½ tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla
2 oz cocoa powder
1.5 cups sugar or 1.3 cups superfine sugar (perhaps powdered sugar would be ok?)
2 eggs
2.5-3 cups flour
½ tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla
2 oz cocoa powder
The recipes say
to divide the dough in two, and then blend in the cocoa in one half. I can
imagine all kinds of trouble from this step: how will the powder be evenly
mixed? Won’t the dough be overworked and become tough? Isn’t it better to make
two batches of dough (1 for vanilla and 1 for chocolate)? That way you could
mix the cocoa with the dry ingredients and avoid those problems. I really can’t
wait to be able to test my theories…
Ok, I'm going to test it today. I will post the recipes. One of these days...
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