Killer Zebras test recipe 3

Ok, these ones turned out really well. So cute! Great chocolate flavor and texture like shortbread. Didn't spread at all while baking (higher temperature and shorter baking time - don't know if that is what did the trick). However, perhaps they were just a tad dry.

The recipe was from the cookbook "277 sorters kakor":

80 g powdered sugar + 20 g vanilla sugar, 300 g butter, and 400 g flour. That's it. Oh, and 20 g of cocoa in half of the dough.

I need to re-do my spreadsheet and put everything in the metric system so I can compare ratios. So far, recipe number 2 was the most popular with the family. I liked this one better.

Killer Zebra test recipe 2

So much better but not perfect

This time I used the recipe for Icebox cookies from Cooks Illustrated:
2.5 cups flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 cup unsalted butter, 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar, 2 large egg yolks, 2 tsp vanilla extract.

The chocolate recipe version reduces to flour to 2 cups and you whisk in 1/4 cup cocoa and then add 2 oz. melted chocolate to the batter. i.e. there is 4 times as much chocolate in this recipe than in my first (if I remember correctly).

I divided each dough into 4 pieces and mushed them together in the hope that it would look like Zebra stripes. Not 100% happy. Next time I will roll out the dough in several layers to make stripes, but squish them together somehow since they shouldn't be perfectly straight (I think).

The results were: soooo much more chocolately flavor. They didn't spread as much (although more than to my liking, but that could be due to thickness or oven temperature maybe?). Maybe I need to cut them much smaller but thicker. I wish they were less crispy and more melt in the mouth-y.

I have continued to expand on my spreadsheet with Swedish recipes for icebox cookies. 2 out of 3 that I found don't use eggs at all. One of them uses confectioner's sugar but the other two use granulated. I am going to try the recipe for "Brysselkex" (Brussels cookies but not like American Brussels cookies - these are like shortbread but with more butter). This is supposedly known as 1-3-4 dough by bakers, since there is 1 part sugar, 3 parts butter, and 4 parts flour. HOWEVER I have not been able to find any other example of this online so I'm wondering if it's not a mistake in the cookbook. I have found 1-2-3 dough. Well, I am going to give it a chance anyway (might add extra chocolate though).