Today is National Black & White Cookie Day, celebrating a New York classic that can’t decide whether it’s a cookie or cake.
The treat has a soft, cakey base topped with vanilla icing on one half and chocolate on the other. Its bold split design became its signature. Its roots are traced to Glaser’s Bake Shop, opened by Bavarian immigrants in Manhattan in 1902, where black-and-whites were among the original recipes. A similar “half-moon” cookie became popular in Utica in the 1920s, though it’s usually more domed. More than a century later, that split icing still makes it instantly recognizable today.
To celebrate the New York classic, Sugar Spun Run makes soft, cakey cookies with buttermilk, then coats them in a glossy vanilla icing and finishes half with Dutch cocoa for the signature black-and-white look.