Binging With Babish: Black & White Cookies from Seinfeld
The velvet voiced Brooklyn pop culture culinarian Andrew Rea (aka Oliver Babish) has another sitcom sweet recipe for folks out there that isn’t just a New York staple, but also an example of one of the few awkward times Seinfeld ever approached or even acknowledged race: the Black & White Cookie. Immediately, Rea starts off on the wrong foot by opening the video slamming the pre-packaged plastic-wrapped versions of the famous NYC dessert delicacy. Look, are they as good as freshly made from a NYC bakery or deli? No, of course not. But I’ll be dead in my grave before I let such dispersions be tossed down from up high on his icy, lonely high horse. B&W Cookies are delicious in most of their forms.
But I digress. Rea does the usual informative and soothing Binging With Babish schpiel, walking through his recipe of the Bavarian-in-origin cookie treat. The cook (he refuses to accept the title of chef which I can’t tell is fair or a ploy) employs fondant icing, whereas some other recipes use a buttercream or different base for the chocolate and vanilla frosting on top of the confection.
This Binging With Babish episode also picks up on a noticeably odd aspect that Jerry muses upon about the tasty treat that Obama once referred to as a “Unity Cookie” (adorable). In Seinfeld, it’s pointed out that the B&W cookie is at its best when you get both chocolate and vanilla halves together. But that’s only possible for maybe half the cookie (if being generous in bite radius), the remaining half made up of two separate (yet equal) leftover strips of just chocolate and just vanilla. Rea solves this a clever, and stylish, presentation that mixes the frostings. My less elegant solution is to make a sort of tacco of the whole thing, folding it over on itself and taking massive bites while hating myself as I await my sugarfoot diagnosis.
If you enjoy Rea’s work, there are multiple ways of supporting him that can be found online, including via his Patreon. In the meantime, look to the cookie, Elaine; look to the cookie…every one.