Anyone for a game of Chess?

Why don't you put on your smoking jacket, sit by the fire in your wing-backed chair with brandy snifter in hand, and enjoy an engaging round of chess while your Great Dane slumbers at your feet. You go and do that. I'll be here, playing checkers, hangin out with my pudgy piggy-dog, who snorts and makes paddling motions in her sleep.

These checkerboard cookies are both casual and elegant, simple and complex. It takes some tactile competence to get all the squares in place, but the easy party is being able to make them ahead of time. In fact, I might have forgotten this cookie dough in the freezer for almost a month. Hey, that still counts as fresh baked! They keep really well and have a great buttery flavor and isn't overly sweet - perfect for tea time.

The only catch is, if you're in the mood for something right now, this isn't it. You have to mix the dough and let it chill. Then you roll the dough, chill it some more. Cut into strips and layer into a log, chill it some more.  And if you have a large enough attention span to not forget the completely chilled out dough in the freezer, the easiest and funnest part is slicing up the log to reveal the patten inside. I thawed the cookie dough log in the fridge overnight and then used a super sharp knife to slice and immediately bake. That's as fast as buying pre-made cookie dough in tubes from the supermarket. (I've heard they have such things for sale out there nowadays!)  See? I did it on purpose.



I'll draw you a diagram and give you a blow by blow of how to assemble the checkerboard Baking Obsession does a great job of explaining the assembly, complete with Ikea instructions flow chart.