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.

Lace Cookies

I am so happy to have a full time job (yay health insurance!) but it doesn't leave much time for baking projects, outside of the madness when I made 15 mini loaves of bread with 13 kindergartners in 2 hours.  Therefore I am going to make the most of my christmas break and bake (and blog) up a storm, starting with these lace cookies, 2 very thin buttery, carmely, toffee like crisp cookies stuck together with a thin layer of chocolate.  I have had a very similar cookie from Trader Joe's and was excited to try my hand at making my own.  I am a bit lazy, so instead of tracking down some dark chocolate (which would have been incredibly difficult as they don't carry it at the grocery store or anything....) I used the milk chocolate I already had at home, and the cookies are delicious but I can see where you would want to use the dark chocolate to cut a bit of the super sweetness in the cookies.  The recipe can be found here and I highly recommend that you add these to your holiday cookies repertoire.    

Mix your dry ingredients together...

then your wet.

Then combine the wet and the dry (it's like rocket science, I know).  It does not make much dough, so don't be alarmed when you look into your mixing bowl and wonder how this will turn into 40 cookies, it will, trust me.

Next you scoop the dough onto a cookie sheet, 3/4 teaspoon at a time, which seems like a ridiculously small amount but they will spread out.  A lot.

See?  After 8 minutes those tiny little blobs turned into these big things.      

When they are fully cool, smear the bottom of one with melted chocolate.  And by smear I mean very carefully and gently spread the chocolate so that you don't break the cookie, which is what I did to the first one I tried to sandwich.

             

Then top it with another cookie and gently press the two together.

Repeat until all the cookies have been paired up into sandwiches.  Check out the recipe here.

Molasses Cookies

I love the holiday season.  I start listening to Christmas music on the drive home from Thanksgiving dinner and don't stop until December 25.  I bake dozens of cookies, I mull wine, and drink hot spiced cider.  I watch Love Actually at least once in the month of December every year.  I like looking for that perfect present for everyone on my list.  Count me in for Christmas parties, driving around looking at lights and Christmas pageants, I love it all.  And so, I am kicking off my holiday baking today with these molasses cookies.  I love molasses cookies, my aunt makes the best (she always used to have a jar of molasses cookies for me and a jar of snickerdoodles for my sister every time we came to visit), unfortunately I seem to have lost her recipe somewhere along the way when I moved back east from Portland, so this recipe I found on Beach Home Companion will have to do for now.  Don't get me wrong, these molasses cookies are absolutely delicious (my dad had already eaten 3 by the time the last batch was out of the oven), but they are a thinner, crisper version instead of the thick, chewy ones I grew up with.  These thin ones though, the sugar caramelizes a bit on the edges and your first bite is a carmely, slightly spicy crunch which is pretty fabulous.  The recipe can be found here.      
 

Start by mixing the dry ingredients together.

Then mix the wet together.

Now, this is tricky, combine the wet and the dry.  Then you have to chill the dough until it hardens, which happens fairly quickly, I waited about an hour.

Once the dough is properly chilled, scoop out about a tablespoon at a time, roll each blob of dough into a ball and roll it in sugar.  Make sure you space the cookies out because they will spread.  The warmer the dough gets the harder it will be to work with, it will start sticking to your hands, so work quickly and put it back into the fridge after you fill up a tray so it can firm back up before you do the next one.

The recipe says to flatten the balls slightly with the bottom of a glass, which I did 2 out of 3 times, and it made no difference, so smush them a bit if you want, it is kind of fun, but you don't need to.

Bake for about 10 minutes, they will make your house smell quite nice, and enjoy.

Gingerbread Cookies

I hope everyone had a very merry christmas, I know I did. There was lots of cooking going on and seeing friends and family and drinking wine and playing in the snow. AND I got lots of food related presents (I just love kitchen gadgets....) which will be showing up here very soon as I can't wait to use them all! Anyways, back to the cooking, I have a fondness for gingerbread cookies. I am not sure where this fondness came from, my mom never made them at christmas, it has always been sugar cookies (which are amazing, by the way). Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find a good gingerbread recipe, one that doesn't resemble spicy cardboard. Fortunately, the second one I tried was good, at least in my opinion. The recipe can be found here, it is another one from the food network website. It is crucial to chill the dough for several hours, and even then you need to be sure to flour your surfaces pretty well to be able to roll it out properly. But don't let that put you off, once you get the hang of it, it isn't that tricky. Also, I would love to master royal icing, but I haven't gotten around to that yet. Instead I like to put a little glaze on these, a mix of powdered sugar, milk and a sprinkle of all the spices that are in the cookies themselves.

Sift together the flour and spices. Set it aside while you get on with blending the rest of the ingredients.

Mix together basically everything else, the butter, shortening, sugar, eggs and molasses.

Slowly add the flour mixture to make a fairly stiff dough.

Divide it in 2 and wrap each half up in plastic wrap. Stick them in the fridge for 3 hours or up to 2 days. I have always left it at least overnight, so I cannot vouch for what happens after 3 hours, but after a day the dough gets firmer and changes color slightly as the flavors develop.

2 days later, during the 'blizzard of 2009' while the weather outside is frightful.....

.... gingerbread is so delightful. Roll out the dough and cut out the cookies, popping the dough back into the fridge between batches so it doesn't warm up too much. Bake them on a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet, I bake them for 11 minutes and they turn out perfectly.

On a slightly related note, I got these woodland creatures cookie cutters from Ikea, and I love them, but I cannot figure out why there is a whale in with a moose, fox, hedgehog, squirrel, and bear. If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

Once the cookies are done and cooled, you can frost them as you wish. I like making a kind of thick glaze with powdered sugar and milk, with a bit of cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg thrown in that I smear of the cookies with the back of a spoon. Let the glaze dry before storing the cookies, or else they will all stick together in a massive glob of sugar and cookies, which may be tasty but probably not very pretty.

Raspberry Snow Bars

Wednesday is my favorite day for the newspaper, it's the day the food section comes out, which is also the only section of the paper I read. This week, the food section of the paper was all about cookies. I had to try some out right away, and we happened to have all the ingredients (except for the raspberry preserves, mine had seeds and there wasn't quite a cup left in the jar) for these raspberry snow bars. You can find the recipe on the Washington Post website.

Start with Crisco.

Add the sugar, salt, egg yolks, and almond extract.

Mix it all up with the flour to form a dough, or so the recipe says. Mine was more like crumbles that I pushed into the bottom of the pan to form a crust and not at all like a cohesive dough. It worked though.

After baking the dough, spread it with the jam (I zapped mine in the microwave for 30 seconds to make it easier to spread). Next time I am adding more jam, definitely more jam is needed. Sprinkle the coconut on top of the jam.

Meanwhile (if you have a stand mixer that you can delegate to) beat the egg white with the sugar until it reaches the stiff peak stage. I love how brightly white and glossy it gets.

Spread the egg whites over the coconut. This is more difficult than it seems, at least for me it was. The egg white stuck to everything but what it was supposed to, if you persevere it will eventually get easier.

Bake the bars, let them cool and voila!

Raspberry Snow Bars (from The Washington Post, Dec. 9, 2009)

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup sugar, plus 1/2 cup for the meringue
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 large eggs, separated into yolks and whites
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup seedless red raspberry preserves
• 1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Have ready a 9-by-13-inch baking dish (preferably glass).

Combine the shortening, salt and 1/4 cup of the sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer or hand-held electric mixer. Beat on medium speed until fluffy, then add the almond extract and egg yolks, beating to incorporate. Add the flour and beat to form a dough that just pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Transfer to the baking dish; use your hands to pat the dough evenly on the bottom of the pan, creating a slight (1/2 inch or so) edge along the sides. Bake for 15 minutes, until lightly golden.

While the crust is baking, beat the egg whites in the (clean) bowl of a stand mixer or hand-held electric mixer on low speed, until foamy, then gradually add the remaining 1/2 cup sugar; increase the speed to high and beat to form stiff peaks. Do not overbeat.

Remove the crust from the oven; spread evenly with preserves, then sprinkle the coconut over the preserves.

Spread the egg white mixture over the coconut, making sure to cover the preserves completely. Bake for 25 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the meringue has picked up some color.

Let cool completely before cutting into 24 bars.