Hemstrought's Half-Moon Cookies

 6 February 2021

Recipe from Home in the Finger Lakes

I knew half-moon cookies from the little bakery, Lynch's, in my Central New York (CNY) home town of Chittenango. My mom made them but not until after I had moved away from home. I recently made Black and White Cookies, thinking they might be the CNY classic, only to learn that they are a different cookie from New York City. Sometime previously I had saved a recipe for Half-Moon cookies claiming to be based on the originals, so I had to try it. There are two versions, chocolate and vanilla, and this recipe is for chocolate cookies,

The dry ingredients—flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt—were whisked together in a large bowl. (The online recipe neglects mentioning the salt in the instructions, so beware.) Softened butter was beaten in a stand mixer. Sugar and cocoa powder (I used Dutch processed) were added and beaten several minutes until fluffy. (The instructions say to add these with the mixer running. This would have spread cocoa powder all over the kitchen, so I turned the mixer off to add these then gradually increased the speed of the mixer to minimize the mess.) Eggs and vanilla were added and mixed until incorporated. The flour mixture was then added (with the mixer running) in portions alternating with milk and mixed until combined. The finished dough is thinner than most cookie doughs. It was portioned onto baking sheets using a #24 scoop then spread into a 3-inch circle. (I didn't have the #20 scoop suggested in the recipe so my cookies are a little smaller and I made 36 rather than 30 of them.) These were baked in a 350° oven until the edges were set. The finished cookies are soft and moist and stuck a little to the parchment paper. It was 80 minutes from starting to finishing baking. It took an additional 40 minutes to make the buttercream frosting and put it on the cookies, after they had cooled. The recipe didn't make enough frosting for 36 cookies.

As the article from which I got the recipe describes, these are soft, cakey cookies. They are almost fudge-like but not that rich. They are okay but not good enough for me to want to make them again. I guess I prefer cookies with a little more texture and cookies that keep better, these tended to stick to whatever they are stored on as does the frosting, even in the freezer.  They are not as good as the Black and White cookies that I made a few months ago.