Black & White Banana Bread Cookies

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Black & White Banana Bread Cookies

These cookies came to me in a dream - literally.

A couple of weeks ago I woke up from a dream where I had been eating banana bread at a friend’s house. But instead of bread, it was cookies. And the cookies were, for some unspecified reason, iced like black & whites.

“Well that was weird,” I thought, upon waking. But as I shook the sleep out of my eyes, it occurred to me that a hybrid, black & white-iced banana cookie might also be amazing?

I searched online to see if I had perhaps stumbled upon a similar cookie recipe somewhere and filed it away into my subconscious - but nothing turned up. So I played around with a few recipes for banana bread-inspired cookies I found online (striking gold with an adaptation of the recipe from the blog Like Mother, Like Daughter). And then covered the cookies with my tried-and-true icing recipe.

And oh wow. Wow, wow, wow. The combination of tender, cinnamon-perfumed banana cookie, under a generous layer of fudge-like fondant icing is honestly next level.

Each element elevated without overpowering the other. The cookies tasted at once comfortingly familiar and excitingly new.

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A Little Jewish Cookie History

Along with egg creams and pastrami, black & white cookies are an iconic New York-Jewish food. They are a staple of the kosher bakery case, and a fixture at bar and bat mitzvahs, Shabbat kiddush tables, and other communal occasions.

Like so many classic recipes, their origins are disputed. Some folks (like William Grimes in the New York Times) say they were created at Glaser’s Bake Shop in Manhattan (RIP) around the turn of the 20th century. Glaser’s owners were Jewish immigrants from Bavaria who brought a recipe for drop cakes with them, and stared icing and selling them to customers shortly after opening in 1902.

Photo credit: James and Karla Murray

Others say they originated at Hemstrought’s Bakery in Utica, New York, where they are called “half moons.” From there, the story goes, they made their way to The Big Apple where the cookies were renamed black & whites. Regardless of their true origin, black & white cookies are deeply beloved - especially by a generation of New Yorkers (Jewish and not) who grew up in the city in the mid-20th-century, and associate black & whites with happy childhood memories.

Despite their nostalgic pull, black & whites have gained a reputation for being mediocre. As my friend and fellow food writer, Gabriella Gershenson, aptly put it, “Somehow, black and whites rank up there with bagels, pizza, and cheesecake as among the city’s most emblematic foods, even though most people, lovers and haters, agree that they’re middling.”

The truth is, like so many other classic American dishes, the original recipe was marred by industrialization. The majority of black & whites found in bakeries and supermarkets today are made with subpar ingredients - high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated soybean oil, and artificial vanilla and chocolate flavors - that don’t add up to much more than one-note saccharine sweetness.

But made with quality ingredients, black & white cookies can be divine. And when you combine them with all of the moist, tender, and delicately-spiced qualities that come with banana bread, they are truly a dream come true.

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With these black & whites, the inside matters as much as the outside.

Black & White Banana Bread Cookies

Makes about 2 dozen cookies

For the Cookies:

2 cups (280 g) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup (113 g) unsalted butter, softened (you can use vegan butter)

1/3 packed cup (60 g) light brown sugar

1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar

2 medium ripe bananas, well mashed (a little less than 1 cup, 205 g)

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Icing:

3 cups (360 g) confectioner’s sugar, sifted (don’t skip the sifting unless you like lumpy icing!)

1/4 cup (60 ml) milk (or non-dairy milk), plus more as needed

3 tablespoons Dutch-process cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon instant coffee granules

1. Make the cookies: Preheat the oven to 350F (180C), and line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. Whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl and set aside.

3. In a large bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until fully combined. Add the mashed bananas, egg, and vanilla, and mix well. Add the dry mixture to the wet in two stages, stirring until incorporated.

4. Using a small cookie scoop, scoop rounded spoonfuls of the batter onto the prepared baking sheet, leaving 2 inches in between each. Bake, rotating the baking sheets back-to-front and top to bottom halfway through, until set on the top and lightly golden, 15 to 17 minutes.

5. Remove from oven and let cookies rest on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to fully cool.

6. Make the icing: Stir together the confectioner’s sugar and milk in a medium bowl until a thick but easily spreadable icing forms. (If the mixture seems too thick to spread, stir in a little more water, 1 teaspoon at a time, until the right consistency is reached.)

7. Transfer half of the icing to a separate bowl, and stir in the cocoa powder and instant coffee. If necessary, add a little more milk to reach a thick, spreadable consistency.

8. Once the cookies are cool, set the wire racks over a piece of parchment paper. Using a butter knife or small offset spatula, carefully glaze one half of the flat side of each cookie with the lighter icing. Repeat on the other half with the darker icing.

9. Let the glazed cookies set on the racks for a few minutes before serving. Store, covered, in the fridge for up to 5 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

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The Hot Dog, Reimagined as Pop Art

Steve Marcus

On the subject of iconic New York/Jewish foods, last week I went to the opening of a new exhibit at the Eldridge Street Synagogue museum. The pop artist Steve Marcus, a longtime resident of New York’s Lower East Side, shares his tongue-in-cheek, hot dog inspired comics (like the one pictured above), plus treasures from his impressive personal collection of hot dog memorabilia.

The exhibit will be on display through November 6 and is worth a visit. (Plus, you can stop at The Pickle Guys while you’re in the neighborhood.)