lemon shortbread cookies

Inspired by the first wildflowers of spring, I headed to the kitchen to make these intensely lemony , flaky shortbread cookies.  I know most people crave chocolate, but lemon is my very favorite flavor of all .  I never use lemon extract, because it doesn't have the same tang that freshly squeezed lemon juice has, though I do add vanilla to balance these cookies.  A little sweet, a little puckery.

You make the dough ahead of time and stick in the fridge or freezer.  It thaws fairly quickly if you freeze it, thanks to the unsalted butter, then just roll it out fairly thickly, cut out the cookies and bake.  I tend to use my round fluted cookie cutters  - perfect for a sturdy cookie that shows just the tiniest amount of toasty edges.  Yummers!

This made about 40 cookies for me today - I forgot to count!

Lemon Shortbread cookies

2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature

2/3 cup granulated sugar (plus more for sprinkling on top, if you'd like)

2 tablespoons freshly grated lemon zest
1 and 3/4's cups King Arthur flour

2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

pinch of kosher salt

Cream the butter in the mixer bowl, add the sugar and mix.

Add the lemon zest and juice and mix.
Add the flour and mix.

Add the vanilla and pinch of salt and mix.

Gather the dough into a ball, pat it down into an oval, and wrap in plastic wrap and place in freezer.  I left it in the freezer for two days before I was ready to make the cookies.

Later:  take the dough out of the freezer to thaw a bit.

Preheat oven to 325F.

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

As soon as the dough is pliable, mold into an oval with your hands, roll, and proceed to cut out your cookies.  If you'd like, sprinkle a little granulated sugar on top of the cookies.

Bake one cookie sheet at a time for 20 minutes .  I like a little toasty browning on the edge, but that's up to you.  Remove cookies to a cooling rack and continue rolling and cutting out cookies - but make sure the cookie sheet has cooled in between batches.

That's it!

Happy Easter to you all!

Cookie time: Swedish snowballs

A sudden flurry of cookie making, some off to my grandchildren in Minnesota (spice cookies for Frankie and roasted sugared walnuts, for Izzie, who is still on a gluten-free diet most of the time), more cookies for a few friends who look forward to them (Italian Christmas biscotti, gingerbread stars) - and these always popular nut and confectioner's sugar snowballs, also know as Russian Tea cookies, Mexican Wedding cookies, and a zillion other nicknames.  I call them Swedish snowballs now, because the recipe comes from a Swedish woman I knew.  My newest grandson is too little for cookies, but next will be a few batches for his parents on Christmas Day.  Hope you are all enjoying December and the Christmas (or Hanukkah) season!

This makes about two cookie sheets full of snowballs.

To make:

Preheat oven to 375F.

2 ungreased cookie sheets.

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 and 1/4 cups King Arthur all purpose flour

1/4 t. salt

1/2 t. nutmeg

3/4 cup shelled walnuts, finely chopped (I use a food processor)

More confectioners sugar for rolling and sprinkling

Cream butter and sugar.

Add vanilla, nutmeg, flour, salt, and nuts.

Cream well, then pinch of pieces of dough and roll between your palms into dime or quarter sized balls.

Place on baking sheet and bake for 14 minutes.

Cool balls, then roll in confectioner's sugar.

Place on platter and shake an avalanche of more confectioner's sugar on top just before serving.

Happy day to you all!

What I'm reading:  Catching Fire:  How Cooking Made Us Human, by primatologist Richard Wrangham.  Fascinating!

pumpkin-raisin cookies !

It is creeping officially toward Fall here - after a few sweltering days, it was time to close the windows at night, and switch from bare feet to socks and sandals.  All I can say is YES!  Time for my favorite pumpkin cookies!

These are fat, plump, soft - and a big handful of spicy delicious cookie.  I like to throw in soft raisins or currants, but you can skip that if you want.  I have made them with chocolate chips, but honestly prefer the raisins - it's really up to you.  And so easy to make!


pumpkin-raisin cookies

Preheat oven to 350F.
Line two cookie sheets with parchment or foil and set aside.

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I use King Arthur)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup canned One Pie pumpkin puree, NOT sweetened. 
1 extra large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup soft raisins (or you can try chocolate chips)

Measure out the flour and set aside.
Cream the butter and the sugars well, then add the egg, raisins, spices, baking soda, baking powder, pumpkin, vanilla and mix thoroughly.

Add the flour slowly and mix just until blended.  Over mixing makes a tough cookie.

Use a regular sized ice cream scoop to scoop out cookies - I do 6 to a sheet, leaving 3 inches between cookies.

Bake one sheet at a time in the upper third of your oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the tops of the cookies are softly firm when you gently press them.  I made some smaller cookies- the scoop doesn't have a number, but when I measured it was either 2 inches or 1 3/4ths inches - it's hard to measure a round scoop! Anyway, they only took 16 minutes.

Remove cookie sheet to cool a few minutes, then use a spatula to remove cookies to a cooling rack.  Repeat with the second sheet.  This usually makes 13 or 14 big cookies for me.
                                                      *****

Another sign of Autumn?  Finding a huge thicket of wild grapes bordering the local dump area!  Sweet, juicy, delicious - and destined for a soft jelly to serve with roasted chicken.  What a treat!

Happy September!

Want more pumpkin recipes?  
Pumpkin muffins with crystalized ginger
Pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting
Pumpkin-ginger cake

tangy glazed Italian lemon cookies and summer days

Summer is here!  The days are warm and full of birdsong, and down at the pond, the little beach is filled with children splashing and swimming.  I thought this day would never come, but here we are.  How heavenly is that, after a ...um, challenging winter, with way too many days with the thermometer stuck on 15 degrees below zero?

The hemlocks are sending out their several inches of new growth, with light green fingers celebrating Summer.  And I made a fresh fruit salad to toast the new season of sunny, summer weather, as well as a new recipe for the most wonderful lemon cookies I found here.  These are so wonderful to serve along with ice cream, fruit, or a nice little creme brulee or chocolate mousse.  Wish my sister was here to enjoy them - though she really loved chocolate anything:)  

I did change the recipe a bit, but it's easy as pie - no sticking the dough in the fridge for a few hours.  Just whip it up, bake, mix up a quick icing, and you're done.

The dough:
 1/2 cup sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
3 large eggs
zest of 1/2 lemon
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 cups King Arthur flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
two pinches of kosher salt

Preheat oven to 350F.

Fit two baking sheets with parchment.

Cream together the butter and sugar.
Add eggs, lemon zest, and  lemon juice and mix.
Add flour, baking powder, and salt and mix very briefly, just until mixed.
Using a small ice cream scoop ( I used a 1 1/4 inch scoop) scoop out little balls of dough, (if you want bigger cookies, just add 5 or 6 more minutes if you're using a 2 inch scoop)  onto baking sheet, two inches apart.
Bake 12 minutes in preheated oven.

While the cookies are baking make the icing:

1 1/2 tablespoons water
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup confectioners sugar

Whisk ingredients well, set aside.

When the cookies are done, set onto cooling rack to cool completely, then dip tops of cookies into the icing, letting the icing drip slowly back into the icing bowl.  When it stops dripping, set on a rack to dry.

Let cool completely before storing in a container - if they last that long!

triple chocolate chip cookies

Whenever I visit family, I almost always whip up a little something special, and that was especially true of parental visits.  My father, stepmother, and mother were not bakers, but they ALL had a sweet tooth - and they all liked chocolate.  While I can take one bite of a Reine de Saba and leave the rest,  I would guess it would last a day or two at the most, especially with my stepmother.

When she tasted the first cookie,  her eyes got very big as she looked at me, and then she said, "My god, you could start a business with these!", and then proceeded to eat four more.  And these are BIG cookies, averaging out at 4 inches each.

I never did start a business with them, though I made plenty of muffins for years for a local store - these cookies are less sturdy, and the ingredients can be expensive.  But I always remember her remark, every time I make them.

Today I halved the recipe, but forgot to write down the measurements, so I'll leave that to you to figure out.  If you don't have a drawer full of measuring cups, just fill your one cup measure to , say,  3/4ths, then measure out the amount in tablespoons, then halve it to get half the amount called for.  I thought that was pretty clever for 6 o'clock in the morning:)



Triple Chocolate Chip cookies

This makes about 18 large cookies.
Preheat oven to 325F.
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment or clean foil.

3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
2 and 3/4ths cups King Arthur all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Ghirardelli)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup milk chocolate chips (I used Toll House)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Toll House)

Cream butter, sugars, vanilla and eggs in mixer bowl .  Add the flour, cocoa, and baking soda and mix until smooth, then briefly mix in the chocolate chips.

Use a regular sized ice cream scoop (I use a spring-loaded one) place scoops of dough evenly spaced, 6 to a baking sheet.  The dough should be quite firm, and it was because the flour was cool and so was the kitchen.  If you make this during really hot weather, you can chill the dough briefly in the fridge to firm it up a little.  

Bake for 15 minutes, remove baking sheet to cool another 15 minutes before using a spatula to remove cookies to a cooling rack.  When they are warm, they are a little fragile.  

The sun is out and the snow is melting , a little, anyway -  enough to finally see the top of my birdbath emerge from a snowdrift.  Spring!

big lemon cookies

Right in the middle of shoveling and knocking down icicles yesterday, the picture of those Archway lemon cookies floated into my mind.  Have you ever had them?  Those and the hermit cookies were weekly staples in the grocery cart when my children were young, though I admit those weren't the only fingers snitching a cookie.  They were rectangular, and a quite hefty, as I remember.  


You know how it is when you get a bee in your bonnet, as my Mum used to say, so I looked up a lemon cookie I made years ago.  It was good, but I remember thinking I wished I hadn't used lemon extract, or quite so much cornstarch.  So I tinkered with the recipe and ended up with a tangy, 4 inch handful of cookie.  I waffled on the frosting, and ended up just drizzling a little lemon juice and confectioner's sugar icing on top.


Now that's a terrific cookie !


To make 8 or 9 four inch cookies ( or more using a smaller scoop):

Preheat oven to 350F.
Line a baking sheet with clean foil or parchment paper.

For the cookie dough:
1 stick (8 tablespoons) room temperature unsalted butter
1 and 1/4th cups confectioner's sugar 1 1/2 cups King Arthur all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
3 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of kosher salt
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
zest from a lemon - about 1-2 teaspoons



Stir together the flour, salt, cornstarch and baking powder and salt in a bowl and set aside.

Place the butter and confectioner's sugar in mixer bowl and mix on low until blended, then increase speed and mix a few minutes more.

Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Beat in the lemon juice, vanilla, and lemon zest, then switch to low while you add the flour/cornstarch mixture.  Mix until creamy .

Using a regular ice cream scoop, scoop cookies onto baking sheet, leaving 3 inches between cookies.  (I usually fit 6 cookies on each baking sheet).

Bake for 15 minutes, then let cool briefly on a cooling rack, then use a spatula to let them cool further on another rack - important it you want the icing to set.

To make the icing, just mix a cup of confectioner's sugar and fresh lemon juice to a medium consistency and either brush on the somewhat cooled baked cookies, or drizzle from a fork.  

Enjoy!

Remember the apple orchard?  Here it is in winter, where the trees are snoozing under a blanket of snow...

spicy gingerbread stars

I seem to have been uninspired lately as far as muddling around in the kitchen, preferring instead to go on one of my reading jags.  I have had company though, and for the last two lunches I've tucked away a nice disc of this gingerbread in the fridge, ready to be pulled out and rolled into spicy cookies.  My cardboard box full of all kinds and seasons of cookie cutters has taken up permanent residency in a corner in the kitchen - I just pull it out, put it on a table, and let people pick their favorites.  It may be December, but if you're hankering for a cactus cookie, that's just fine.  And if you're a 3 year old, you'll choose the gnome - and then carefully eat only the hat.  Remember that?  I do - and I distinctly remember the agony of wanting a whole cookie, but afraid to decapitate a ginger man.  So maybe a cactus is safer.

We've had a little snow, thankfully not much - but chilly, and perfect walking weather, which I manage to fit in in between work and reading.  Let's hope I feel a little more inspired next week.

As I said, I keep some of this dough in the fridge, ready to be rolled out at a minute's notice.  It rarely lasts more than a week:  because I know it's there, I'll bake up some cookies for the neighbors or the grandchildren , and sometimes bake a batch and stick them in the freezer, because I know there are days when I suddenly want one - just one.

The recipe is from Craig Claiborne, from the New York Times cookbook, and the cookies are delightfully spicy and soft, but firm enough for mailing.

To make:

Line two baking sheets with foil or parchment.


1 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1 large egg
3/4 cup molasses
3 cups King Arthur all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder


Cream together the butter, brown sugar, and spices.
Add the egg and mix, then add the molasses.  Sift the flour, soda, and baking powder together, then add to the molasses mixture and mix until completely blended.

Pat the dough into an oval, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for 30 minutes in the fridge.

Preheat oven to 350F.
Roll out half the dough to a 1/2 inch thickness.  Cut out shapes as you wish, placing the cookies about 1 1/2 inches apart.
Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, in the upper third of the oven, for 10 minutes.  If your cookies are very thin, they will obviously need less time.
Let cool a few minutes, then use a spatula to transfer to a cooling rack.

Let the baking begin!

martha's sugar cookies

I will never forget the first time I saw Martha Stewart's first book, Entertaining.  It was published in 1982, but I cannot remember the year my older sister showed it to me, could it have been that long ago?  I don't even remember if she bought it for me, or if I got it for myself, but it was like a bolt of lightning.  Beautiful photographs, perfect recipes - that worked!    I was blindsided and in love.  

I've made these cookies over and over - I make pale pink ruffled hearts for Valentine's Day.  Christmas reindeer and stars .  Teddy bears and one year, a group of cactus.  It is an easy dough to work with, and very forgiving - you can roll out the dough two more times using the scraps, without much difference in a splendid butter cookie, as long as you chill the dough in between.

I find her icing also easy - here I used one drop of blue to make this pretty Tiffany blue, then rolled the edges in sparkling sugar, which I found at Your Kitchen Store in Keene, NH.

Today I made these classic rounds for a friend who called at the last minute, in need of a few little treats for a book talk.


Martha's Iced Sugar Cookies

2 cups King Arthur all purpose flour
1/4 t. kosher salt
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 cup ( 1 stick) room temperature unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 T. brandy ( I used Courvoisier)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

For the icing:

1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 egg white
few drops of lemon juice
1 drop blue liquid food coloring

Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
Cream butter and sugar, then add the egg, brandy and vanilla and mix well.
Add dry ingredients a bit at a time and mix well.
Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill in fridge 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F. ( PS:  She specifies 400F, but I use 350F)

Slice the dough in half, and roll out each half to about 1/8 inch thick.
Use cookie cutters of your choosing and place on a baking sheet lined with clean foil.
Bake for 10 minutes - do not allow to brown!  Remove cookies to cooling rack until completely cool. If you are making several batches, turn down the heat by 5 degrees after the first two batches.

Mix icing ingredients well in a mixer bowl,  brush cookies once or twice (letting the cookies dry in between), then roll edges in sparkling sugar.

This recipe makes about 2 1/2 dozen cookies, depending on how thinly you roll the dough.

What I'm doing:

Lots of lazy walks under a bower of still-brilliant yellow leaves,  bouncing on spongy beds of bright green mosses, watching the water in the pond, which will be all-too-soon frozen, and loving those little children in my life.

hint of autumn: spectacular lemon curd cake and spice cookies

Right on time, the wind has shifted.  Mornings are suddenly cooler, and I'm drawn to the watery places, before they freeze.  Afternoons are still warm and humid, but early mornings bring the swing of coolness.

I've been busy, making a birthday cake for my daughter, a gorgeous lemon curd delight with a lovely buttercream.  It was so hot that day that the cake slid apart as I delivered it in the late afternoon, only two miles away.  But, boy - it was one of the best cakes I've ever made.  Bookmark, bookmark!

Cookies for my grands, first few days of school, their favorites - spicy, sturdy Spice Cookies for the lunchboxes.  These are terrific for shipping, to all your kids away from home, as well as a welcoming of autumn weather.

Hope you also get out there to enjoy this September weather, wherever you are!

sweet, pink Valentine cookies

Love.  I think of my stepmother and my father who cooed and sent sweet cards and letters to each other, signed ILY.  I Love You. Their late night silly dances to crackly jazz records on the old record player, laughing, my father in a fez he picked up in Turkey, my stepmother wrapped with colorful scarves as they dipped and spun. Nightly talks on the phone with my mother, always a free spirit, but powerfully connecting conversations.

I 'm reminded of the passionate and heart-thumping feeling I had when I saw my son, and my daughter, as they were born, and the everlasting nights when I leaped up and cooled a fever, or just made special pancakes for breakfast.  That is love, too.

At yesterday's birthday celebration for my granddaughter Isadora ( her seventh!), she used her new face pencils to draw two big hearts on her face, one on each cheek , and I thought of the joy our Izzie and her little brother Frankie have brought into our lives.

And then I came home and made these buttery Valentine cookies with a pale pink glaze simply to celebrate Love, recipe from Martha, always special, always delicious.

Martha's Sugar cookies:

Recipe from Martha Stewart's book, Entertaining.

1 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 cups King Arthur all purpose flour

1/4 t. kosher salt

1/2 t. baking powder

1 large egg

2 T. brandy ( I used Courvoisier)

1/2 t. vanilla

Cream the butter and sugar in a mixer bowl, then add the salt, flour, baking powder, egg, brandy, and vanilla and mix until the dough forms a ball.

Pat the dough into a rough rectangle, cover with plastic wrap, and chill for at least 30 minutes.

When ready to roll out, preheat oven to 375F  (updating 2/11/13:  I am now preheating to 350F, because after the first batch of cookies, the rest of the cookie batches baked too quickly). Cut the rectangle in half, and proceed. You can gather the scraps up and use again - the dough is very forgiving.

Place cookies on foil covered cookie sheets fairly close together.

Bake cookies for 9 minutes, though if your cookies are small, keep your eye on them - they may bake faster, and these cookies should not be browned.

Remove cookies to a cooling rack to cool completely before icing.

The icing:

1 cup confectioner's sugar

1 egg white

2 drops lemon juice

2 drops red food color

Beat the egg white until frothy, then add the confectioner's sugar and lemon juice and food coloring. Brush on completely cooled cookies and let dry on racks. When the icing is completely dry, it should be shiny and hard - which makes these much easier to transport or package.