Lemon Sugar Cookies

We have our traditional sugar cookies that we make every year for christmas, these aren't those cookies.  Those are cut out cookies, made using the same cookie cutters and frosted with buttercream and topped with sprinkles.  These are chewy, lemony and almost completely unadorned (I say almost because I couldn't help myself, I added some red sprinkles to the sugar I rolled them in to make them look a little festive).  O my are they tasty.  I am discovering that I am quite fond of lemon, I have absolutely no idea why it has taken this realization so long to dawn on me, but there you have it, lemony baked goods are my new loves.  I even remember the first time I admitted my love of lemon, my sister and I were trying to decide on which mini cupcakes to sample from this place and I selected the meyer lemony lemon and then I spent the rest of the afternoon thinking about how I could possibly recreate it.  The sweet and tart and bright deliciousness of baked goods that feature lemon can't be denied, and if you don't believe me, try these cookies.  I found the recipe here and didn't tweak it at all, except for the red sprinkles.

Start by mashing the lemon zest and sugar together.  It didn't turn a lovely pale yellow like the recipe said, but I'm sure something happened and mushing things about is generally not a bad time.

Then mix the dry stuff together.

Next, cream the butter and sugar, mix in the egg, then the flour, pretty standard cookie making stuff.  Also, please ignore how terrible the picture of the dough is, I don't know how it ended up so blurry but I made it smaller in hopes that it would be less noticeable, but I don't think that helped much.

Then you just scoop out about a tablespoon of dough at a time, roll it into a ball and roll it in the sugar.  Bake until the edges turn a bit golden, they are super soft and chewy when you take them out but get a bit crisper as they cool.