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Black and White Cookies
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No need to choose between chocolate and vanilla (or make a trip to NYC) with these black and white cookies! Made with a super soft sugar cookie frosted with half chocolate frosting and half vanilla frosting, you’ll love these classic cookies!
Black and White Cookies Recipe
If you’ve been to New York City, you’re probably familiar with this popular bakery cookie. Once you sink your teeth into one of these bad boys you’ll be craving them any time you’re in NYC…and when you’re not there too. Which is where this homemade black and white cookie recipe comes into play. Made with a soft and buttery sugar cookie and frosted with half chocolate icing, half vanilla, you can make black and white cookies in your own kitchen!
What are black and white cookies?
Black and white cookies are made with soft, cakey, round sugar cookies frosted with (you guessed it) black and white frosting! They’re a staple in NYC bakeries, but you can find them in certain bakeries across the U.S thanks to their popularity! They’re traditionally frosted on the flat side of the cookie (the bottom) and sometimes are frosted with more of a buttercream forstined and other times with a thin icing. I’ve tried them both and I prefer the thinner icing, but if you prefer a thick, buttery frosting you can always make a small batch of vanilla and chocolate buttercream instead! 
What do you need to make black and white cookies?
You’ll need a few different components to make these scrumptious cookies: soft and buttery vanilla sugar cookies, vanilla frosting and chocolate frosting. Luckily, all those parts are made with pretty simple ingredients, so you won’t need to grab too many ingredients at the store to whip these up! Here’s your shopping list:
- Unsalted butter
- Granulated Sugar
- Eggs
- Vanilla Extract
- Sour Cream
- Flour
- Baking Powder
- Baking Soda
- Salt
- Powdered Sugar
- Milk
- Corn Syrup
- Cocoa Powder
Tips for frosting your black and white cookies so they come out looking like you bought them at a bakery
- Make sure your cookies are COMPLETELY cool before frosting: Listen, I get it–I’m impatient too. So, you’ll have to believe me (because I’ve learned the hard way) that you must let your cookies completely cool before frosting them. I’m talking FULLY cool to the touch, not oh that’s cold enough. It’s not cold enough. These need to be fully room temperature before you slap any frosting on them or they’ll turn into a sad mess.
- Use the corn syrup: I know not everyone is the biggest fan of corn syrup, but it gives these black and white cookies such a beautiful, shiny finish!
- Frost all of the cookies with the vanilla frosting and then all of them with the chocolate frosting:Â These black and white cookies are easiest to frost when you’r strategic about it. I like to do the vanilla frosting on all the cookies first so you’re not alternating between frostings.
- Let the vanilla frosting set before you move onto the chocolate:Â To get the cleanest looking black and white cookies you’ll want to let the vanilla frosting fully set before frosting the other half with chocolate. Even if the vanilla is messy you can make a nice clean with the chocolate frosting!
How to store black and white cookies
The frosting on your cookies will harden, but you still want to be careful of storing these properly so they don’t get messy (and stay fresh!). I like to store these in a single layer in airtight container in the fridge for best results. If you must stack them, you can put a layer of parchment paper in between the layer, but beware the frosting might get smudged. They’re still just as tasty, but after all the effort of frosting them, it’s nice for them to stay pretty! You can also freeze these cookies if you don’t want a whole batch for one sitting! I recommend freezing them unfrosted and then defrosting and frosting them when ready to serve as the icing can get a little runny and messy when frozen and defrosted!
Happy baking, my friends!
XXX
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- Prep Time: 40 minutes
- Cook Time: 13 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours
- Yield: 15 cookies
- Category: dessert
- Method: oven
- Cuisine: american
Black and White Cookies
No need to choose between chocolate and vanilla (or make a trip to NYC) with these black and white cookies! Made with a super soft sugar cookie frosted with half chocolate frosting and half vanilla frosting, you’ll love these classic cookies!
- Prep Time: 40 minutes
- Cook Time: 13 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours
- Yield: 15 cookies
- Category: dessert
- Method: oven
- Cuisine: american
Ingredients
For the cookies
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
For the frosting
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 3 to 4 tablespoons milk
- 2 tablespoon corn syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- In a standmixer fit with the whisk attachment, beat the room temperature butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Scrape down the bowl and add the egg, sour cream and vanilla and beat until combined.
- Scrape down the bowl and add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat until no streaks or clumps of flour remain, but do not over mix.
- Use a 1.5 ounce cookie scoop to scoop out the dough into balls and place 2 inches apart onto your cookie sheet.
- Bake at 350°F for 13 minutes or until the edges are set, but the cookies are still a bit underdone in the middle. Place on a wire rack to cool completely.
- While the cookies cool, make the frosting. In a small mixing bowl, combine the powdered sugar, 3 tablespoons of milk, corn syrup, vanilla extract and salt. Whisk together until smooth. If the frosting is too stiff, add the additional tablespoon of milk to reach the desired consistency.
- Transfer half of the frosting to a separate mixing bowl to make the chocolate frosting. Add the cocoa powder to this half of the frosting and mix until smooth and creamy. Now you should have one bowl of vanilla frosting and one of chocolate!
- Flip the cooled cookies over so that the flat bottom is up. Use an offset spatula to frost one half of a cookie with a thin layer of vanilla frosting. Repeat with all the cookies and place the cookies in the fridge for 10 minutes to let the frosting set. Remove the cookies from the fridge and frost the other half of each cookie with the chocolate frosting. Place back in the fridge for the frosting to set until ready to serve!
Made these yesterday – they are great! One note – I didn’t do an even split of the icing between 2 bowls so I ended up with a super thin vanilla icing and a very thick chocolate icing. They were both delicious still, but if I do it again, I would just add more vanilla icing into the chocolate to even the consistency. I used oat milk as that’s the milk I had on hand, and that worked fine. I will definitely be making this again.
These look delicious! How do I know which is the 1.5 oz cookie scoop? I think mine was just labeled as medium and looks to be about 1 TBSP scoops (although that’s just a guess).
Hi Megan! 1.5 ounces is about 2 and a half tablespoons! This is the one we use!