Recently I blogged about my first Food Bloggers of Canada Conference in Montreal. The conference organizers arranged forced seating at the Friday banquet to encourage meet and greet. One of the most welcoming people at that table was Merry of Merry About Town. She explained that her name really is Merry - and that her mother Mary gave her the name with that spelling since she was born close to Christmas. So as I write this she must be planning a birthday soon. I invite you to check out her blog - she focuses on food and lifestyle and travel - and also works as a Social Media Strategist.
I have always wanted a good lemon cookie recipe and have long been motivated to find one as a treat for my BF who is crazy for lemon. (She loved these! She "hid" them in the freezer and declares they actually taste great right out of the freezer - haha!) I used Merry's cookie recipe exactly, but modified the glaze. The recipe yielded 50 about cookies.
Getting ready: Preheat oven to 350 F. Line baking sheets with parchment. You'll need two lemons. Take the butter and the egg out of the fridge so they come to room temp.
1 cup butter, softened
1½ cups sugar
1 egg
2 tsp lemon juice
1 TB lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla
In a large bowl (I used the whisk attachment), cream together butter and sugar. I run the mixer for several minutes until the mixture is light coloured and fluffy.
Add egg, lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla. Mix well.
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
2¼ cups (11.25 oz) all purpose flour
In a small bowl, mix together salt, baking powder and flour.
Add flour mixture to butter mixture and mix completely.
I use my 20 ml scoop (that's like a rounded TB) to scoop the cookies. Merry suggests rolling them, but I did not. Place on prepared baking sheet 2 inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes - I did them for 12 minutes rotating the pan halfway. (Merry says that less will give you a softer cookie and more will give you a crispier cookie).
2 cups icing sugar
2-3 TB lemon juice
1 TB lemon zest
1 TB milk
¼ tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp lemon extract
Glaze. Peek at Merry's recipe for her glaze. Whereas she drizzled the glaze, I prefer to dip the cookie tops into the glaze and so I had to make a bit more. Since I had juice from two (technically 1.5) lemons, I used more of the lemon juice in the glaze and less milk. I also wanted to pump up the lemon flavour as much as possible and so added lemon extract.
Start by mixing the icing sugar, zest and lemon juice and extracts. Add milk in dribbles until desired glaze consistency is achieved. If the glaze seems too runny add more icing sugar.
The zest in the glaze makes these cookies look pretty - though one could add further embellishments for decoration if desired.
Merry drizzles on the glaze while the cookies are still warm, but I waited until they were cool and then did my usual upside down dip which covers the tops with a nice coat of glaze. I let them stay at room temp for quite a few hours before storing them in a tin. As already mentioned - they freeze well!
These are cookies I made in the summer - when my kitchen is a bit warmer - they flattened a bit more while baking. To avoid this, chill the dough a bit before baking.
Notes and Tips...
Lemon - maybe stating the obvious here, but it is best to zest the lemon first before juicing. I always wash citrus fruits to remove the thin wax coating. Rolling the whole lemon on the counter maximizes the juice that will be released. Try zesting "upwards" with a handled microplane.
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