Half-and-Half Cookies, Two Ways: Strawberry Lemonade Cookies and Orange Dreamsicle Cookies

One might assume from the name of Sarah Kieffer's cookbook 100 Cookies that it includes 100 recipes. That's not exactly true, even though every recipe in the cookbook has a number and there are 100 numbered entries. For instance, recipe #30 is "White Chocolate Swirl Brownies, Two Ways." It's a riff on Kieffer's White Chocolate Brownie recipe (#29), and includes instructions for two different swirl options: a dark chocolate swirl and a raspberry swirl. So technically those are two different recipes -- but it seems logical that they are combined into a single numbered entry. 
 
On the other hand, recipe #72, "Half-and-Half Cookies, Two Ways," includes two recipes that at first blush have a more tenuous connection. The headnote to this entry notes that Kieffer's inspiration for her double and tricolored cookies (like recipe #70, her Neapolitan Cookies) comes from Irvin Lin's Marbled, Swirled, and Layered. I own that cookbook and have made some of Lin's two-tone cookies, including his Arnold Palmer Cookies and his Strawberry and Cream Cookies.

I can see the Irvin Lin inspiration in the first half-and-half cookie, Kieffer's "Strawberry Lemonade Cookies." They are half strawberry-lemon dough and half lemon dough, topped with lemon glaze. But the second recipe, "Orange Dreamsicle Cookies," is the converse concept: orange-vanilla cookies covered in half vanilla glaze and half orange glaze. I mean, I get that both of these recipes include components from two distinct flavors, so they both can accurately be described as "half-and-half." And the ingredient lists for the base doughs are nearly identical. But the end results are so different that I think it's a bit unfortunate the two cookies have to share an entry in the cookbook.
To make the strawberry lemonade cookies, you make a lemon dough from softened butter, sugar, lemon zest, an egg, an egg yolk, lemon extract, vanilla, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. You add ground freeze-dried strawberry powder (and optional food coloring) to half of the dough to make strawberry-lemon dough. You combine a portion of lemon dough with a portion of strawberry-lemon dough to make each cookie and flatten them before baking; I used a #50 scoop to portion out each flavor and got 20 cookies from a batch. 

After the cookies are completely cool, you spread on a lemon glaze made from powdered sugar, corn syrup, lemon juice, vanilla, and (optional) food coloring. The glaze was almost entirely opaque, and it seemed like such a shame to cover up the pretty two-tone cookie underneath. But I did appreciate the boost of sweet lemon flavor in the glaze. Not surprisingly, I loved these cookies. They were chewy and the strawberry-lemon dough was very close to the strawberry dough component in Kieffer's Neapolitan cookies; the freeze-dried fruit delivered such a clean, bright, intense strawberry flavor. This strawberry cookie dough is just so freakin' delicious, and pairing it with lemon is just as good as pairing it with vanilla and chocolate.
 
The dough for the orange Dreamsicle cookies is identical to the base lemon dough from the strawberry lemonade cookies, except that it uses orange zest and orange extract instead of lemon zest and lemon extract. I used a #30 scoop to portion out the dough and got 21 cookies from a batch. After the cookies are cooled, you glaze them black-and-white-cookie style: a mixture of powdered sugar, vanilla, corn syrup, and water on one half; and a mixture of powdered sugar, less vanilla, corn syrup, and orange juice to the other. I added a little bit of orange food coloring to the orange glaze, but it was natural food coloring (which is always pretty muted), so the color came out fairly yellow and actually looks a lot like the lemon glaze from the strawberry lemonade cookies.
The glaze dried hard and shiny (it did take a few hours) and I really liked the way these cookies looked even though my orange-flavored glaze wasn't orange colored. They definitely had a strong creamsicle orange-vanilla flavor. I actually prefer my orange desserts with less vanilla, but I really liked the fact that the orange flavor was so clear. If I made these cookies again, my own personal preference would be to dial back the vanilla in the vanilla glaze (or honestly, just use orange glaze only even though you would lose the "half-and-half" quality) -- but that's just me.
 
I really appreciate the creativity of these two recipes and they both produce terrific results. I think that Kieffer is underselling them to combine them into a single recipe entry. Each of these recipes is strong enough to stand on its own! 
 
Recipes: "Half-and-Half Cookies, Two Ways (Strawberry Lemonade Cookies and Orange Dreamsicle Cookies)" from 100 Cookies by Sarah Kieffer.

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