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!

skinny fresh strawberry muffins (with a lemon glaze)

A week or so ago I had to fess up to the fact that I had gained a little weight. I don't have a scale, but I could tell by the fit of my clothes that it was time to be a little more careful about my eating.  I wasn't really eating more, but getting less exercise because of an ankle injury.  

I've been eating mostly fish, chicken, and all sorts of salads, but today longed for a nice sweet muffin ,  Most of my muffins have a lot of sweet butter, but I do make a lemon low fat muffin, that would go nicely with the last of the strawberries I got a few days ago.

Done!  
It was just perfect with a last minute lemon glaze.  And they passed the "give the leftovers to the carpenters" installing a new outside door.  They were thrilled (and hungry).


Fresh strawberry muffins

Makes a dozen medium sized muffins.
Preheat oven to 350F
Grease or butter regular size muffin tins (I also did a few minis)

1 heaping cup strawberries, cut into slices or diced
2 cups King Arthur flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
zest from a lemon (about a teaspoon)
1 cup plain yogurt (I used Chobani)
1/4 cup canola oil
1 extra large egg
1 t. vanilla
1 t. fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons water ( my batter was a little stiffer than usual, so I just added a little water)

Place the dry ingredients in your mixer bowl and mix briefly.
Add the lemon zest, yogurt, canola, egg, vanilla, and lemon juice in mixer bowl and mix slowly. Fold in strawberries.  Add the water if your batter is too stiff.
Use an ice cream scoop to fill muffin cups 3/4's full.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until muffin tops bounce back when touched.
Remove to a cooling rack.

While still warm, you can brush them with a quick glaze:

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice


I'm loving making up salad bowls - this is my latest after a trip to Whole Foods where I finally found large arugula leaves!  Tossed in some water canned sardines, 1/2 piece of good bread , diced, and a strong garlic-lemon salad dressing. 

Happy February!

buttermilk lemon cake

How can it be the last day of August already?  The last few months flew by, with me hobbling around with what I was told was gout, but tests confirmed it was not.  Still limping, but slowly able to walk further - to the store to buy ingredients for my daughter's favorite birthday cake!

Buttermilk Lemon cake is a combination of two recipes -  a sticky, lemony cake with a lemon glaze, and a creamy cream cheese and lemon frosting I usually top my carrot cakes with, and it is delicious!  I forgot to take a picture of the big cakes, but there was a tiny "extra" cake with the last of the batter.  I did a hasty piping and dollops of frosting, not so pretty, but it would have to do as an after picture.

Buttermilk Lemon cake

You can use a sheet pan, or several round pans.  Grease the pans and set aside.

Preheat oven to 325F.

3 sticks unsalted butter, room temp

3 cups sugar

zest of 2 lemons

Beat in mixer until blended and creamy, then add:

5 eggs

4 1/2 cups King Arthur flour, all purpose

1 teaspoon baking soa

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 and 1/2 cups buttermilk

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Scrape the batter into the greased pans and bake - it usually takes an hour and ten minutes for mine.  The cake will be slightly brown on top and firm to the touch when you press the center gently.  Remove to wire racks to cool.  While cooling, make the lemon glaze:

1/2 cup lemon juice

1/2 cup sugar

Place lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan, bring to a boil, stirring the whole time, then take off heat to cool. 

If using a rectangular pan for the cake, cut the cake into equal rectangles or squares and let cool on a rack.  If using round pans, cool, run a knife around the edge, and very carefully unmold cake onto a wire rack.  Brush the lemon glaze on the cakes .

The Cream Cheese frosting:

In mixer bowl, place:

1 large package cream cheese

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

juice of one lemon (about2-3 tablespoons)

Cream the ingredients, then slowly add:

1 box confectioner's sugar (or 3 1/2 cups loose confectioners sugar)

Pipe or spread on cooled cake, or cake pieces.

One year ago:  Rigatoni with crunchy breadcrumbs and tomatoes

Two years ago:  Simple Carrot soup with fresh ginger

Three years ago:  Hint of Autumn and Spice cookies

Four years ago:  Carrot cake w/cream cheese frosting

coffeecake muffins with cinnamon topping

10 degrees again, and the snowmelt has refrozen into slick ice as I try to shuffle my way to the car.  The calendar says it's almost April and time to start walking outside, but right now?  Ice skates would be more appropriate.

It's been a long, cold, snowy winter, and my frustration with the weather showed in too many tortilla chips, leading to tighter pants and sweaters.  The diet I started was going well, but yesterday I'd had enough.  Muffins for Sunday breakfast?  Absolutely!

Instead of those buttery lemon poppyseed muffins I usually make, I opted to make light-as-a-feather, spongy, lemony coffeecake muffins again with that crunchy, sugary topping.  I ate two, and hid the rest in the freezer for my next sugar craving.


Coffeecake Muffins

This makes 5 large Texas size muffins.

Preheat oven to 375F.
Grease your muffin tin or use parchment muffin liners.

First, make the topping in your mixer bowl:

1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons softened unsalted butter
1/4 cup King Arthur flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of kosher salt

Mix until you have a crumbly mix. If the sugar mix clumps, just chill briefly in the fridge and mix again briefly.  Scrape into a bowl and set aside.

In the same mixer bowl, mix the dry ingredients:

1 cup King Arthur all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of kosher salt
zest from half a lemon

Then add the wet ingredients:

3/4 cup buttermilk
4 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix until smooth, then, using a spring-loaded ice cream scoop, scoop one large scoop into each muffin cup, and sprinkle a heaping tablespoon (or more) of the topping on top.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until muffins are firm to the touch when gently pressed , then set on a cooling rack to cool.  When cool, use a dull knife to carefully remove from muffin tin.

Can you believe it's almost Easter?

fresh lemon scones with drizzle icing

You know how crazy I am about lemon by now -  nine times out of ten I'll pick lemon over chocolate.  Yesterday was one of those days, when I woke up with a yearning for a tangy lemon scone.  Even better, how about a lemon icing, sticky and sweet-tart?

Oh, my gosh, these were delicious!  I had them with my newest favorite, seltzer with lemon slices and sprigs of fresh mint from the garden, sitting in the shade and listening to the burble of Moose Brook.  Does that sound like summer or what?


Fresh Lemon Scones (with drizzle icing)

Preheat oven to 375F.
Fit a baking sheet with parchment paper, set aside.

zest from one large lemon (about 1 1/2 teaspoons)
2 cups King Arthur all purpose flour
2 pinches kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
7 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into tiny cubes
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

The glaze:
1 egg white, beaten until frothy
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
sanding sugar

Place the zest, flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder in mixer bowl and mix briefly.
Add the cold butter and mix until incorporated well, but you can still see tiny pieces of butter.
Add the lemon juice to the buttermilk and add to the flour mixture, mixing briefly again until the dough clumps together. If it's too dry, add a little more buttermilk, a tablespoon at a time.
Remove dough to a clean counter and pat into a circle.  Cut the dough into 8 pieces and arrange on the baking sheet.
Brush each scone with the egg white glaze, then sprinkle on the sanding sugar.
Place in preheated oven on the upper third shelf.
Bake 20 minutes, or until scones are golden.

While the scones are baking, make the drizzle icing:

3/4  cup confectioner's sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
one drop of vanilla
a tablespoon or so of milk  - enough to make a thick but easy to drizzle icing using a fork or whisk.

Let scones cool completely before icing, then drizzle on as you wish.  You can also serve the icing in little dishes for dunking instead of drizzling on (kids love dunking!).

The blueberries are ripe, peach season coming up, followed by apples -  don't you just love summer?

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!

lemon poppyseed muffins & March pandemonium

The last day of what-a-March!  The grandchildren and my daughter-in-law are on their way to new lives in Minnesota (my daughter has to stay in NH a little longer for business), my son and his long time girlfriend got married , are expecting a baby, and bought a new house.  Zip, zip, zip.  Everything has happened so FAST.  I'm going to miss those children so much, but they assure me I can learn to Skype and maybe get a little glimpse of them growing up.

I've tried not to make these lemon poppyseed muffins because of the winter chubbiness I'm sporting under that coat, but I know it's there.  But first visit from the newly married couple called for them, and I remembered my son loving them as a boy.  

Perfect choice, and Rachel loved them.

I woke up to a sleet storm this morning, and made another batch - most to give away, but two for me.  I nibbled the sticky golden edges and wondered what on earth April will bring...

Happy end of March and on to Spring!  I actually saw my daylilies popping up next to the house, such a welcome glimpse of green!

Lemon Poppyseed muffins

Makes 10 or 12 Texas size muffins.

Preheat oven to 340F.
Grease two Texas size muffin tins (each tin makes 6)

zest of two large lemons
6 tablespoons poppyseeds
3 cups King Arthur all-purpose flour
1 and 1/2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
6 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
6 tablespoons milk
3 sticks unsalted butter, softened, room temperature

Grate the lemon zest into the mixer bowl and add the poppyseeds.  Stir in the flour, sugar, and baking powder.  With mixer on low, add the eggs, vanilla, and milk.  With mixture still on low, add the butter, a little at a time.

Mix until the batter is creamy, with no flecks of any cold bits of butter.

Using a standard ice cream scoop, scoop batter into muffin tins, two scoops per muffin cup. Place the muffin tins in upper third of the oven. Bake for about 40 minutes - the muffins should be fairly firm to the touch if you press the tops gently - and a lovely golden brown.  While the muffins are baking, make the glaze:

Lemon glaze

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
a pastry brush for brushing on muffins

Warm in a small saucepan until sugar is dissolved.  Simmer a few minutes, then remove to cool down.  

When muffins are done, remove from oven and brush each top with a little glaze.  Let the muffins cool and remove from tins to a cooling rack set inside a baking sheet - the glaze is sticky!  Brush each muffin mostly on the tops a few times, but also on the top edges.  

Enjoy!

roasted chicken thighs with lemon and thyme and wishing for Spring

As I sit and wait for winter to end (hmmm, good luck with that!), I've found myself browsing blogs and Pinterest, which is where I found this delicious pan roasted chicken from Damn Delicious.  I made it last night and it couldn't be easier, though next time I would use half the chicken stock (which is intensely lemony) and twice the thyme.  I also transferred the seared chicken to a sunny yellow casserole dish, just because it was so pretty, but you can make it as she did - in an oven proof skillet.   Ohhh, this was SO good!  And you can find the recipe here.

The sugar snap peas I planted on March 11th are growing by leaps and bounds against the kitchen window  - just seeing something growing makes my gardener's heart happy.


The snow outside is still there - 3 feet of icy, rock-hard drifts that make hiking or walking impossible.  What a winter!  But it IS March, and that snow is going to have to melt sometime, right?  Wishing you all happy springtime thoughts!

lemon cake puddings with chopped pistachios

Snow again, but this time a pretty, not-too-serious snowfall, with huge snowflakes covering the icy driveway.  If you don't have cleats on your boots, you end up doing the Old Lady shuffle down the path to the driveway and finally, the car.  Better that than the people I see walking around with casts and braces on their arms and legs.

This is the kind of weather that makes me hungry for creamy pastries - eclairs and cream puffs, Napoleons and Boston Cream pie.  But with a firm eye on the calendar , it won't be long before we shed our winter layers - our wool coats, parkas, hats, and puffy vests that hide the winter inches.  So no, no cream puffs.

I decided instead on these airy, lemony puddings that magically transform in the oven into two layers:  the bottom a creamy sauce, and the upper layer more like a souffle.  And rather than use my vaguely remembered recipe from my mother, I used a recipe I found here.


Lemon Cake puddings

This recipe makes 5 standard servings, using various mousse cups.

Preheat oven to 350F.

1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
2 medium lemons
2 large eggs, separated
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup sugar, divided into 1/2 and 1/4 cups
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter

Butter 5 standard pudding or mousse cups and set aside.

Grate the lemons and measure out one tablespoon rind.
Juice the lemons and measure out 1/3 cup lemon juice.  Set aside.
Beat the egg whites and salt until soft peaks form, then continue to beat on low, adding 1/2 cup of sugar a tablespoon at a time .  Continue to beat until stiff peaks form, then transfer to another bowl and set aside.

In the same mixer bowl (no need to wash) beat the egg yolks with the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and mix. Add the lemon zest, the lemon juice, the milk, flour, and melted butter and mix carefully, then add the egg white mixture.   Use a rubber spatula to fold the mixture - there may be a few bumps of egg white, but that's fine.

Pour or spoon the mixture into the prepared cups and place the cups in a baking or cake pan filled halfway up with boiling water.

Place in preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes or until the tops are slightly golden.  Remove from oven and, using an oven mitt, transfer cups to the counter to cool.

While they're cooling, shell and chop a handful of pistachios and sprinkle over the puddings before serving.



Just remember -  four more days til Daylight Savings time!

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...