You must be wondering why these are called " Icebox Cookies". These are named after the refrigerator's predecessor "Icebox".
In early 1930's refrigerators were starting to make their way into common households. Around the same time women slowly started entering the workforce. In order to strike a work-home balance, they would make the cookie dough well in advance and as the cookie dough could easily be refrigerated or frozen, they would use "iceboxes" and later "refrigerators" to store them.
The baking time of the cookies is anything between 9-12 minutes. With dough in the refrigerator, they were ready for unannounced friends and family or instant social callings. Having homemade treats in no time was both a welcoming and a heartwarming gesture.
Even today the same reasons hold true. With busy lives, these are for those who have hectic schedules and yet prefer homemade goodness.
The best thing about these cookies is, you could add any mix-ins you have in hand or in your pantry in the dough. Be it chopped almonds, chocolate chips, coconut silvers, chopped pecans or even raisins.
I tried making five types of cookies with single batch of cookie dough.
Checkered
Swirl
Half & half
Chocolate chips mix-in
Almond mix-in
Here's how these are made:
Ingredients:
We would be making two types of dough here. Butter dough and chocolate + butter dough.
150gms butter at room temperature.
100 gms powdered sugar
1 egg at room temperature
2 separate batches of cake flour of 125 gms each.
1.5 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Method:
In this method, the chilling time of the cookie dough is for minimum of 2-3 hours. You could always make the dough or even shape the cookies and store them in the refrigerator for as long as you want and can bake them right from refrigerator into the oven.
In a mixing bowl, add the butter and the powdered sugar and cream them together with a hand mixer for about 2 minutes or untill creamy.
Add the beaten egg in two batches while simultaneously beating the mixture.
Pour in the vanilla extract and combine well.
Your basic mixture is ready.
Divide this mixture in two equal parts in two separate bowls.
In one bowl, add the first batch of 125 gms of cake flour. With hand mixer mix it well untill a smooth dough is formed. Make sure not to over mix it. Just untill all the ingredients are well combined. This is your butter cookie dough.
Place the butter cookie dough on a plastic wrap and cover it forming a nice small square. Place it in the refrigerator for at least an hour or more.
In the second butter sugar mixture, add your second batch of 125 gms of cake flour and also the cocoa powder and combine together. This is your chocolate + butter dough.
Again transfer this dough on a plastic wrap and cover it, forming a square and place it in the refrigerator for at least an hour or more.
Now first take the chilled butter cookie square out of the refrigerator. Cut the square into for equal parts.
Place the three parts in the fridge leaving one out side.
Do the same for the chocolate butter dough too.
Now you have two parts of dough. The butter and chocolate dough each.
Shape both portions of dough with your rolling pin into sheets 1cm in thickness and 6cms in length and chill the dough for at least 30 minutes, so it’s easy to slice. Be sure both sheets are of the same size.
Once the dough is chilled, cut the sheet into 6 equal strips. Repeat this step for chocolate dough too.
To form the checkerboard pattern, lay 3 strips of dough in alternating flavors onto a cutting board. Top the 3 strips with 3 more alternating flavors. Repeat this one more time until you have a square with 9 strips. Repeat with the remaining dough.
Squeeze the strips together, carefully to keep the square in shape, but making sure the strips hold together. You don’t want gaps in between the strips.
Place the checkered log back in the refrigerator to chill to make them easy to slice into cookies.
Now for swirl cookies take equal portions of butter and chocolate dough from the refrigerator.
Using the rolling pin, roll both the doughs separately into flat sheets of equal length and thickness.
Place both the flat sheets on top of each other and place them on a plastic wrap. Now roll them together into a round log. Roll it and again place this log into the refrigerator. Once chilled cut them in 1cm thick cookies. You would get close to 8-9 cookies with this log.
Now for half & half use equal parts of both the flavours of dough. Combine them together and roll in into a log of at least 3.5cms in diameter. Wrap it plastic wrap and refrigerate.
Now for mix-ins. I used chopped almonds and choclate chip cookies.
You are now left with one part of chocolate flavour and one part of butter flavoured dough.
Use the butter dough and roll into flat sheet. Add the chocolate chips and roll into log of 3.5cms in diameter.
Do the same for chocolate dough by adding almonds chips.
Don't forget to place all of them wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour before baking. You could freeze them too untill you are ready to bake them.
Finally slice the dough logs into 1cm thick cookies and bake in a preheated oven at 170°C for about 10 - 12 minutes.
Cool them on a wire rack and store them in an air tight jar.
And your homemade and handmade cookies are so ready.
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