Topped with dark chocolate icing on one half

and vanilla on the other,

it's a classic dessert that is only made

right here on the East Coast.

If you grew up in New York,

chances are you've seen black and white cookies

at shops dotted across the state.

Today, we visit Zaro's Bakery,

a company that ships its cookies nationwide,

to get a behind-the-scenes look at the making process.

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can sell 100,000 cookies each year.

While recipes may vary from shop to shop,

the cookies are always slathered

with rich chocolate icing on one side

and vanilla on the other.

Here in New York City, you're likely to find

a flatter, denser, vanilla cake-like cookie

with a smooth, shiny fondant icing.

Meanwhile, in upstate New York,

Massachusetts, and Connecticut,

don't even think about calling them black and whites.

The cookies here are the half-moon variety.

And although these cookies have made quite the footprint,

it's the New York City style that's made its claim to fame.

Grabbed a couple of black and whites.

And a black and white cookie for me.

Medha: The recipe is simple.

It starts off with ingredients like oil, eggs,

and lots of sour cream.

Michael: We use sour cream. It helps to

tenderize the cookie and keep it moist and soft,

and it also gives it a little bit of sour flavor.

Medha: Is the purpose of the sour cream

also to make it that spongelike texture?

Michael: Yes, it will. It helps.

It certainly helps with the texture.

Doing great.

Medha: Good! OK, we did it.

It's messy and fun. [laughs]

Next comes the whole milk.

Michael: We're adding milk again, more fat.

Keeping it creamy, keeping the cookie soft,

and helping to maintain that cakey texture.

Medha: The dry ingredients consist of baking soda,

baking powder, salt, and natural vanilla flavor.

But the key to black and whites

is to add enough flour so the batter holds shape.

What ingredients in this

make it more like a cake consistency

versus a cookie consistency?

Michael: Well, we use a combination of AP flour

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We do use honey.

But those are the ingredients that we use

to really keep it moist and fluffy, like cake.

Medha: Why honey? Michael: It's something,

we've used honey for a long time.

Honey does help cake and cookies to retain moisture

better than just regular sugar will.

Medha: It smells really good.

Michael: This mixer is,

it's got to be 50 years old, at least.

And it's one of these machines that, you know,

they don't make them like this anymore.

For some reason, when we've tried to mix

our black and whites in some of the other mixers,

we've not gotten the result we like.

Medha: And what's that result?

Michael: A soft, airy, well-mixed, beautiful cookie.

Medha: As soon as the flour mixture is complete

and has zero clumps, bakers move on

to the making of the fondant.

Michael: It's icing sugar and water,

for the most part.

And then the chocolate is icing sugar, water,

and cocoa powder for color and chocolate flavor.

There are some slightly different ingredients

within the icing sugar that help it to set up.

We've used the fondant as long as I've been alive.

Our great-grandfather decided

that was how he was making them.

I do think it was more of a New York City,

East Coast way to make the cookie.

Maybe New Yorkers don't have time to carry around

a black and white cookie with buttercream on top.

It would make too big of a mess. It could be.

Medha: All right. Do you need help?

Michael: I would love some help.

[Medha grunts]

Michael: Yeah, it's about 50 pounds.

Medha: It's a little smoky.

Michael: So, we are going to mix the icing sugar

for about four minutes at a very low speed

to beat out any lumps and make sure

it's nice and smooth and ready to take liquid.

I am setting up another timer now for four minutes.

And on that four minutes,

we are going to pour the water through the grate,

into here, as it mixes slowly on first speed.

It's getting there. You could see in the center,

see how it's starting to get shiny?

Medha: Yeah.

Michael: That's what we're looking for throughout.

Medha: And so if it was a chocolate fondant,

you would put cocoa powder as the last step?

Michael: Correct. You get a different flavor,

but they're the same base.

Medha: What do you prefer?

Michael: Chocolate. All the way.

Medha: Yeah. Me too, me too.

Michael: I'm a chocolate lover.

Medha: It kind of has a sticky texture to it.

Michael: It does. It will be very sticky.

It will have a stringiness to it.

We're looking to get a very nice coating,

where you're not seeing the bottom of the cookie.

Medha: And how long did this process take

your great-grandfather to develop?

Michael: When he came from Poland,

he came from Poland as a trained baker.

So somebody in Poland trained him

and taught him how to bake.

Medha: Once the icing is at its optimal thickness,

bakers store the icing at ambient temperature

in small buckets.

Michael: It's naturally cool at this point.

We keep it at room temperature.

The ambient around here stays at about 68 degrees.

We make about 400 pounds.

Well, sadly, during the times of the pandemic,

we're making about 100 pounds a week.

Before the pandemic, we were probably making

500 pounds of icing a week.

Medha: This is fun.

Michael: So you can see the consistency, right?

Michael: Yeah, it's very nice.

It looks like frosting,

but you can tell that if it stayed on a cookie,

it has more of a sticky consistency.

Michael: The longer we wait to do this,

the harder it will get to get out of this bucket.

Medha: How long can the fondant last?

Michael: It can last a couple of weeks.

It's basically just sugar and water,

so it can sit out.

Medha: Oh, my God.

All these things are much harder than they look.

Michael: Yes, it's very true.

I'm sure in every place you go, they usually are.

Medha: Yeah.

It looks heavenly to eat.

And it does have a thicker consistency than frosting,

and it's definitely stickier.

Michael: This just came out of the mixing bowl.

And as you saw, when we were pulling it out,

it was still pretty viscous and liquid. It had flow to it.

You can see the flow is now stopping,

and it's starting to solidify.

Medha: Oh, yeah.

Michael: And this will get, it will never get hard,

but it will get to a point where it's set up and dry,

and you could touch it and it won't leave fingerprints,

it won't leave marks.

And then underneath,

you'll have a little bit of kind of tender,

more tender icing underneath.

And so that's why it's time-sensitive

to get it out of the bowl.

'Cause if we left it in the bowl,