Live From the Surface of the Moon

It just came to my attention that this weekend marked the 43rd anniversary of the Apollo 11 manned moon landing. The landing is one of those collective memories for those of us of a...certain age. With one exception, most of that memory is pretty fuzzy. I do remember a hot night, up late, glued to the tube, my sibs and a few neighbor kids jumping on the furniture. My parents were around somewhere. We were probably munching chips and pretzels, swilling soda. The mundane details are lost. 

But if I could go back in a time machine, I'd make Half-Moon Cookies part of that historic evening. They are definitely a celebration cookie, since they take time and care to make properly. The batter has to be super-smooth, the cookies just the right size and thickness. To spread the dark and light frostings evenly, without smudging, takes planning, preparation, precision, and nerves of steel - the right stuff, in other words. We made them in Kids Baking Boot camp this week and the girls executed them perfectly. Someday, these young women may be baking them in their terraformed city on the moon itself (if they're not too busy piloting a FTL ship or applying some percussive maintenance to their own TARDIS).



As I type this on my super-fast laptop, the I-Phone and Kindle are lying nearby. (No time machine - yet.) All these devices, and the software that drives them, hardly seem possible; the technology is almost indistinguishable from magic. But I'm not that impressed by it and not because I'm old and jaded. It's because my "oh, wow!" moment happened four decades ago on that July night when Armstrong stepped from the ladder onto the moon. It wasn't the step that blew me away; it was the caption underneath his image: "Live: From the Surface of the Moon".  Now, what wasn't possible after that?

Half-Moon Cookies
(8 cookies)

Our students didn't have buttermilk on hand so they improvised by stirring one teaspoon lemon juice into a third cup of regular milk and letting it stand until curdled and sour.

1-1/4 Cups flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ Cup sugar
1/3 Cup butter, softened
1 large egg
1 teaspoon lemon zest (optional but authentic!)
1/3 Cup buttermilk

2 Cups powdered sugar, sifted
3 Tablespoons milk
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons milk
2 Tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper. Use a pencil to make four 4" circles on each piece of parchment paper, spacing them about 3" apart.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat together sugar and butter until smooth and creamy, about 1 minute. Beat in egg and lemon zest until well combined. On LOW speed, alternately beat in flour mixture and buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.

Drop ¼ cupfuls of dough onto the pencil circles and spread the dough to the edges of the circles.

Bake for 11-13 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cookies tests clean. Remove cookies to cooling rack. Cool completely before frosting.

While the cookies cool, prepare the frosting: In a medium bowl, stir together the confectioners’ sugar, 3 Tablespoons milk, and vanilla until smooth. Set aside ½ cup icing in a second bowl; stir the cocoa powder and 2 teaspoons milk into this portion until smooth. Now you have black and white frosting.

To frost the cookies: Turn the cookies over, bottom side up. Spread white icing over one-half of each cookie. Let stand about 5-10 minutes until dry to the touch. Then carefully spread chocolate icing over the other half. Let stand at room temperature until set, about 1 hour.