Chessboard Cookies

Today's cookies are considered by many families in Norway to be one of the essential 7 types of cookies

Checkerboard Cookies ~
Sjakkruter

to bake for Christmas list.  In comparison to other cookies the Scandinavians love, these are relatively bland in flavour as there are no spices. Don't however be fooled, the combination of vanilla and chocolate in these chess-like cookies are a perfect match.

Chessboard Cookies ~ Sjakkruter 

You will need:

You should have 2 vanilla
balls and 2 cocoa balls

300g plain flour 

75g icing sugar

200g butter, room temperature 

2 tsp vanilla sugar

2tbsp good quality cocoa powder 

Mix the flour and the icing sugar thoroughly. 

 

Add the butter and mix till it forms a smooth dough. 

Vanilla and cocoa rolls,
placed next to each other

Divide the dough into two portions. Adding the vanilla sugar to one and the cocoa powder to the other. Make sure each is incorporated well. 

Next, divide each portion in half so you now have two vanilla dough pieces and two cocoa. 

Roll out one of the vanilla pieces into a long sausage that measures about 60cm.  Repeat for one of the cocoa pieces. 

Place the cocoa roll next to the vanilla one.  Cut the rolls in half at the 30cm mark. Carefully pick up one set of vanilla and cocoa rolls and place them on top of the other so that the vanilla sits on the cocoa and the cocoa sits on top of the vanilla, in a checkerboard way. See photograph.

Press gently down. 

Checkerboard rolls

Repeat the process again with the remaining two dough balls to create another set of checkerboard rolls.

Place both checkerboard rolls in the fridge for a minimum of half an hour. 

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. 

Checkerboard slices

Take the rolls out of the fridge and slice each one into slices about 6-7mm thick. 

Place slices on lined baking trays, leaving room for them to expand a little. 

Bake for 10 minutes. 

Let them cool on the trays for a couple of minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. 

Here we see the difference between prebaked and baked

A tin full of Checkerboard Cookies

Today in Scandinavia it is St Lucia's Day when tradition is to bake saffron buns. I write and share the recipe each year so follow the link  here to learn more. 

♥  We have now made five of the seven cookies for Christmas, hope you have a good Sunday everyone and preparations are going well  ♥