Lemon Butter Cookies

 

A few weeks ago we had our first progressive in our new on-campus house. Our staff pleaded for people to make food, and not just drinks, so my roommate, Joanna, and I happily obliged. Not having ordered any ingredients for our cookies we decided to just make something that we had the ingredients for in the house. Coincidentally, someone had bought cake flour from the store on just that day so we decided to use it, against the advice of one of the best cooks in the house. It turned out just fine and in fact, making the orange (original) version of these one day this summer, I used regular flour and it produced equally good results. So don't worry, if you have some cake flour to spare, by all means use it, if not they'll still come out beautifully. In any case, our wonderful new house, which is actually a co-op, was filled with all the ingredients we needed, including the lemons we used which were provided by our own lemon trees! We also decided to put a little twist on these cookies and were going to turn them into thumbprint cookies but discovering the softness of the dough (these cookies spread a lot) we decided to just simply frost them with some of the delicious jams we have in the house. A thin layer of raspberry or blackberry jam made for delectable little cookies which our housemates raved about. I also think you could make these in so many ways with all different types of citrus and even have lemon cookies with lime frosting, etc. The possibilities are endless!

Lemon Butter Cookies (adapted from The New York Times)
Yield: About 4 dozen cookies (or maybe 5 dozen if you make them as small as we did)

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 2/3 cups cake flour or more all-purpose flour (cake flour gives a finer texture)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
2 packed teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest
1 large egg plus 2 large egg yolks, at room temperature

Directions
1. Position two oven racks in top and bottom third of oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a bowl, whisk flours, baking soda and salt together. In a mixer, cream together the sugar, butter and orange zest at medium speed until light and smooth, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of bowl frequently. Add egg and mix. Add one egg yolk and mix. Add remaining egg yolk and mix. Stir in dry ingredients just until combined.
3. Scoop tablespoons of dough onto parchment, leaving more than 1 inch between cookies. Press each one down lightly with 2 fingers to flatten to a thickness of 1/2 inch. Leave any ridges and valleys on top of cookie intact, but smooth the edges.
4. Bake about 15 minutes, rotating cookie sheets halfway through. Cookies should be pale but baked all the way through. Cool on sheets 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack and cool before storing in airtight containers up to 1 week.

Icing
Ingredients
1 lemon
1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 to 4 tablespoons whole milk
2 drops almond or vanilla extract
Pinch fine salt.

Directions
1.Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Peel orange, being careful to remove only outer lemon zest, and cut into thin strips. Blanch in boiling water 1 minute; drain.
2.Sift confectioners’ sugar into a bowl. Whisk in 2 tablespoons milk. Whisk in more milk if needed to make mixture thin enough to spread.
3. Add extract, salt and zest, and whisk to combine.
4.Place cookies on a rack and drizzle icing over each one (make sure there is some lemon zest in each spoonful). Icing will settle into cookie crevices; let harden.
Note: Instead of icing, cookies can be sprinkled with coarse crystal sugar before baking.
Or you can do what we did and spread them with a thin layer of raspberry or blackberry jam.