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Neapolitan Checkerboard Cookies
Updated Dec. 7, 2023
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- Total Time
- 1 hour 40 minutes, plus overnight chilling
- Prep Time
- 5 minutes
- Cook Time
- 1 hour 35 minutes, plus overnight chilling
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 1½cups/192 grams all-purpose flour
- ½teaspoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal)
- ½cup/112 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½cup/100 grams granulated sugar
- 1large egg, yolk and white separated, at room temperature
- 2teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1(1.2-ounce/34-gram) package freeze-dried strawberries (about 2 cups slices)
- 1¼cups/160 grams all-purpose flour
- ½teaspoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal)
- ½cup/112 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½cup/100 grams granulated sugar
- 1large egg, yolk and white separated, at room temperature
- 1¼cups/160 grams all-purpose flour
- ¼cup/23 grams cocoa powder
- ½teaspoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal)
- ½cup/112 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½cup/100 grams granulated sugar
- 1large egg, yolk and white separated, at room temperature
For the Vanilla Shortbread
For the Strawberry Shortbread
For the Chocolate Shortbread
Preparation
- Step 1
Prepare the vanilla shortbread: Whisk together flour and salt in a medium bowl. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, combine butter and sugar on medium speed until pale yellow, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides a few times. Add the egg yolk (reserve egg white) and vanilla extract, and mix until combined, about 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the flour mixture all at once and mix on low until it all resembles coarse pea-size crumbs. Transfer to a piece of plastic wrap and scrape the bowl and paddle clean. (No need to wash.)
- Step 2
Prepare strawberry shortbread: Pulse freeze-dried strawberries in a food processor until powdered (some crumbs are fine). You should have about ⅔ cup ground strawberries. Transfer to a medium bowl. Add flour and salt, and whisk to combine.
- Step 3
Add butter and sugar to the stand mixer bowl, and mix together on medium speed until pale yellow, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides a few times. Add the egg yolk (reserve egg white) and mix until combined, about 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the flour mixture and mix on low until it all resembles coarse pea-size crumbs. Transfer to a second piece of plastic wrap.
- Step 4
Prepare the chocolate shortbread: Whisk together flour, cocoa powder and salt in a medium bowl. Add butter and sugar to the stand mixer bowl and mix together on medium speed until pale yellow, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides a few times. Add the egg yolk (reserve egg white) and mix until combined, about 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the flour mixture and mix on low until it all resembles coarse pea-size crumbs. Transfer to a third piece of plastic wrap and scrape the bowl and paddle clean. (No need to wash.)
- Step 5
With your hands, pat doughs into rough 5-by-10-inch rectangles and wrap them tightly in the plastic wrap. Using a rolling pin, roll the doughs so they are ½ inch tall. (If they’re larger than 5-by-10 inches, they can be trimmed to size later.)
- Step 6
To assemble, whisk the reserved egg whites with 1 tablespoon water to break up the whites. Trim any uneven edges from the dough (or if dough is larger, trim down to 5-by-10-inch rectangles).
- Step 7
Cut each dough into 9 (½-inch-wide, 10-inch-long) pieces. Once sliced, transfer strips to the fridge so they stay firm while you work.
- Step 8
To form the checkerboard pattern, lay a strip of each flavor on a cutting board (chocolate, strawberry, vanilla), brush with the egg white mixture and gently press the long sides together so they adhere. Layer another 3 strips (strawberry, vanilla, chocolate), repeat with egg white and pressing. Repeat with the last layer (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry). You should have a long 3-by-3 square. Repeat with the remaining dough strips until you have 3 logs. Wrap with plastic and transfer to the refrigerator to chill overnight.
- Step 9
When ready to bake, heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Remove one log at a time and square up any uneven edges, then slice the dough crosswise into ⅓-inch-thick squares.
- Step 10
Space the squares about 1 inch apart on the baking sheets and bake until the edges are lightly golden, 12 to 13 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for about 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- The cookies can be stored up to 1 week in an airtight container.
- The assembled dough logs can be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months, then thawed in the refrigerator until ready to slice and bake.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
I added about a teaspoon of cream to the strawberry and chocolate doughs, just to help them come together. The cookies worked beautifully and they taste amazing.
I have seen freeze dried strawberries at Trader Joe's if you have one nearby.
I made these with pistachios instead of the freeze dried strawberries. I weighed out 68 grams of shelled pistachios and ground them up in my food processor before adding them to the dough. I made the other two doughs the same as in the recipe They turned out great, good combo if you like pistachios.
I just made the three flavors of dough and put the rectangles in the fridge. In the video she says you need to hydrate the dough and she suggests 24 hours (or at least assembling in the evening if making the dough in the morning.) The written recipe doesn't mention this at all! So glad I watched the video and caught this instruction (also because Sue is awesome and the video is fun.)
Is there a reason not to make all the basic dough in one batch, divide it in three and then add the flavorings? Or at least measure the initial dry and then wet ingredients together, and divide each into three, to reduce duplication of steps? Thanks for any thoughts.
The dough looks like dry pebbles when you heap it on the plastic wrap, but when you roll it with a rolling pin in its plastic wrap package, it comes together into a slab. Give it a try!
Just a heads up- there is a silicone packet in the freeze dried strawberries packages. Don’t dump your strawberries in the blender without removing it first! -which I did once making macaron filling -arrrrgh!!
I made the cookies. They turned out well. Yes the dough was dry, but when you compress it inside the plastic wrap, it comes together nicely. I would recommend cutting and assembling the strips when the dough is warmer, not fully chilled, so that it is flexible rather than crumbly. Yum!
I made a 10x 5 inch painter’s tape lines on my kitchen counter so when I dumped out the doughs on the plastic wrap I could see the dimensions to roll it out to. And agreed that though the chocolate and strawberry doughs in particular come out pretty crumbly, using the plastic wrap they come together nicely.
In the video, she says to put the plastic wrapped dough slabs in the refrigerator overnight. Might be a good thing to add to the recipe.
My 3 logs are chilling in the fridge to cut/bake later. Recommendations: o Use a paring knife or other smallish sharp knife to cut the dough--see video. o Resist the urge to bake scraps right away. Instead, refrigerate them, wrapped, with the other unbaked dough, segregated by flavor, for use in patching. o If the 9 strips per log aren't all the same length (likely), manipulate scraps to make them match better. o Refrigerate dough at all stages on a rimmed half-sheet pan for ease in handling.
Epic fail. The strawberry dough is entirely too crumbly to roll out. Made strawberry cookies with it - not very good. Was able to get the chocolate and vanilla to roll out and made a layered cookie. Again not very good cookies. So much time, effort, and ingredients wasted for mediocre tasting cookies. They are all going in the garbage - or maybe I’ll leave them for the raccoons
I baked a test batch and froze the rest for later baking. I used TJ’s vanilla bean paste instead of extract. Cookies turned out delicious & look very impressive, but the crumbly doughs were challenging to work with. I’d recommend letting the strips come to room temp before assembling so that they’re more pliable. For the next batches I plan to give the sides of the thawed, assembled logs a quick once-over with a rolling pin before slicing to give the edges a neater finish.
4.5 hours start to in fridge for overnight chill including clean up.
Thank you for making this video:) Seeing you wrap the mixer with the clean dish towel when first mixing in the flour will save me hundreds of future cleaning hours--genius idea! I love this recipe the most because you can do all the work early and have beautifully freshly baked cookies coming out of the oven, aroma wafting in the house, just as company is arriving, making my Christmas relaxing instead of STRESSED! Can't wait to make these.
Epic WIN! Living in CO, I added two tbsp. oat milk to each dough and used dried raspberries on hand instead of strawberries. They were soft and held together well. Received lots of compliments and personal satisfaction ;)
This was a visually stunning cookie with a nice, simple flavor. My chocolate dough turned out very crumbly so it was a little hard to work with but baked well. The cookie really did remind me of neapolitan ice cream! It was a little labor intense but I think the end result was worth it for an impressive looking cookie. The strawberry flavor was delicious. I think as a modification--I would want to try vanilla, strawberry, and pistachio flavored doughs for another variation.
I didn't have too much trouble, though I'm not great at rolling out dough to a specific thickness. They came out reasonably neat. Some were more rectangular than square. Next time I think I might line a loaf pan with plastic wrap and put the soft dough in there to get it to a nice clean rectangle. I could flatten the top with another loaf pan.
While these are beautiful cookies and the flavors do stand independently, this is extremely finicky dough and not sure the juice is worth the squeeze as written. The doughs are extremely crumbly, even with an overnight rest in the refrigerator for hydration, using plastic wrap, and bringing the dough back to room temp for pliability - would recommend either adding more butter or even cream to get more moisture to the dough, otherwise you will be fighting it the entire process.
one tablespoon matcha instead of cocoa powder✨
I made these for Christmas and will again for Easter. You can get creative with the 3rd flavor if strawberries aren't your thing. I also made them as tri color style cookies. Everyone loved them. I see some bad reviews, but they appear to have not followed the directions about rolling in plastic. Video is very helpful.
These are yummy. I’ve also used raspberry powder rather than strawberry. An option is to slice thinner, cook for less time and then sandwich 2 cookies with vanilla icing. That’s also a good way to use up the ends and leftover dough rolled into a log then sliced.
The marble log I made from scraps made some very pretty cookies. :)
These came out perfect! Made the recipe exactly as written except I used a hand mixer. I prefer it to my stand mixer when working with small quantities like in this recipe. Be patient when you’re mixing the flour into all three doughs. Everything looked very, very dry at first. After about 2-3 minutes with the hand mixer, the dough formed the pea-sized crumbs the recipe mentioned. I also rested the doughs overnight in the fridge before assembling. Very satisfying to cut and look at!
Or, reduce the flour even further? Maybe 1cup instead of 1 1/4?
I’m in Colorado. The vanilla dough was moist enough to set/cut. The strawberry & chocolate were way too dry and crumbly. Should I add more butter & egg yolk since I’m at a higher elevation and it’s so dry here?? It was an epic fail!
Just baked these. Really worth the effort!
The chocolate and strawberry mixtures remained sandy; they never formed a dough. (I followed the recipe to a tee.) With lots of effort to press, roll and chill the sand, I managed to salvage about half the dough but the rest crumbled everywhere, made a mess and ended up in the bin. Adding cream or more egg might help. The cookies that did turn out were just okay. Next time, I'll look for a different checkerboard cookie recipe.
I substituted barista-grade matcha powder for the cocoa powder 1:1 by weight and they turned out perfect! The taste was just right. I added a touch of red gel coloring to the strawberry portion to account for browning and I think that was the right call. I did 2 overnight rests in the fridge. These are totally worth the effort!
We substituted 2 tablespoons of matcha green tea powder for the dried strawberries. It worked well for colour and was just a little strong in taste, so next time will try 1.5 tablespoons.
Not bad. Not amazing. Definitely had a hard time sticking together, I would form them while malleable, then refrigerate and maybe even freeze. The taste is subtle but for the most part nice. Probably not worth the effort to make again, but very cute. I wanted to love them.
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