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Chocolate and Vanilla Swirl Cookies are an impressive treat that all cookie lovers will love! Bring a batch to your next cookie swap or bake them to share with friends and family!
I wish that I could make cookies for each and every one of you. Cookies are my favorite thing to share with friends and family. You can never have too many cookie recipes. Have you checked out my Pinterest Board dedicated to cookies? With over 500 cookie recipes, you will find something that everyone will love.
For this year’s annual Food Blogger Cookie Swap, I baked a few batches of Chocolate and Vanilla Swirl Cookies and shipped them off to three other lucky food bloggers. I found the recipe for these cookies from America’s Test Kitchen last Christmas and knew that I wanted to bake them ever since. They are perfect for cookie swaps and shipping. Not only do they taste amazing, but the chocolate and vanilla swirl is pretty impressive as well. Don’t be intimidated by the swirl design, the technique is a lot easier than it looks. I followed the tutorial here. It is really as simple as layering the two cookie flavors on top of each other, rolling the dough and then slicing into cookies.
Chocolate and Vanilla Swirl Cookies
Ingredients
For the vanilla layer:
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter,, softened
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large egg yolks
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
For the chocolate layer:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter,, softened
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large egg yolks
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- To make the vanilla layer, whisk the flour and salt together in a medium bowl. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add egg yolks and vanilla until combined, scraping down the side of the bowl as needed. Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add the flour mixture until combined, about 30 seconds. Transfer the dough to a clean counter and divide it in half. Roll each piece of dough into a 6-inch log about 2 inches thick. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours.
- To make the chocolate layer, whisk the flour, cocoa powder and salt together in a medium bowl; set aside. Melt the chocolate chips in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Let cool completely. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add egg yolks, cooled chocolate and vanilla until combined, scraping down the side of the bowl as needed. Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add the flour mixture until combined, about 30 seconds. Transfer the dough to a clean counter and divide it in half. Roll each piece of dough into a 6-inch log about 2 inches thick. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours.
- To make the cookies, preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Roll one vanilla dough log into a 12-inch square. Repeat with one chocolate dough log. Flip the chocolate dough on top of the vanilla dough so that the chocolate dough is layered on top of the vanilla dough. Gently roll over the top with a rolling pin to make the doughs stick to one another. Roll up the dough into one big log, pressing gently as you roll to adhere the dough. Carefully slice the log into 1/4-inch-thick cookies. Repeat with the remaining two dough logs. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, or until the edges begin to brown. Let cool and enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I ended up putting the chocolate on the outside they looked great!
Hey Ashley can i use shortening/vegetable butter instead of normal butter?? I heard that with shortening the become more soft.
Hi, Christina! I’ve never tried shortening in this recipe but you can try. I hope you enjoy!
I made these cookies and they turned out amazing. I placed them in a plastic container and they are still soft and delish. I also made some white one with some cinammon and honey. These turned out a lil bit more hard but still delicious and soft enough to bite. Thanks for the recipe. It will stay in my cook notebook forever. <3
Your cookies turned out beautiful! Question: ATK uses hard boiled egg yolks in their recipe. Were yours raw egg yolks? I would rather use the raw – one less step and much easier. Thank you for the recipe!
Hi, Barb! I’m not sure which ATK recipe you are referring to. This recipe uses raw egg yolks.
Hi Ashley, Thanks for your response. I like your recipe and will try it that way. The recipe I was referring to was ATK Black & White Spirals.
Merry Christmas!
Here is what the ATK site states: “It took some detective work to develop a French butter cookie recipe with a properly sandy texture. Cutting back on the butter in our sable recipe helped, but the breakthrough was using a traditional French ingredient—hard-cooked egg yolk—which eliminated excess moisture and perfected the texture of the cookies.”
2 hours to firm up in the fridge was actually way too long in my case. I actually had to let it warm up some for me to even be able to roll it. I try using cling wrap because I stupidly forgot to buy wax paper and I screwed up so royally that I ended up losing half of the dough… Never use cling wrap.
The end result for me was not pinwheels but just mixed cookies.
The cookies came out beautifully…could have been slightly more sweet though…thank you so much..
Hi, Sangetta! I am glad to hear that the cookies came out well. Happy Holidays!