Lemon Butter Cookies

Once a foodie, always a foodie. And if you're into food porn like me, chances are you're addicted to whatever little piece of technology that keeps you connected to the WWW. I found this on Lynn Hemer's cookandbemerry.com and I almost made these if weren't for Hugo announcing it was 11:00 pm. Hugo is the wall clock and how he came to be Hugo beats me, but since I named my son 8 years, it's had a domino effect in my household. I think it comes from Nathan (that's my son) wanting to have a dog for so long now and since he's had a few names in his head, he thought might as well put those names to good use rather than letting them slip away into the abyss of childhood memories. 

Yeild : 60

Ingredients : For the Cookies

Dry

• 2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest

Liquid

• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon lemon extract

Creaming

• 1 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened
• ¾ cup extra-fine sugar
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 4 large egg yolks

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 F/ 175 C. Cover baking sheet with aluminum foil and lightly grease or spray.
2. In a bowl mix all the dry ingredients with a whisk untill blended well.
3. In a separate bowl, mix all the liquid ingredients.
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugars under well blended.
5. Add the lemon juice, egg yolks, vanilla and lemon extract and whiz until thoroughly mixed.
6. Add the dry ingredients until thoroughly mixed in.
7. The dough should be soft enough to pipe. If not, add water 1 teaspoon at a time and incorporate.
8. Put the dough in a pastry bag fitted with a ½-inch open star tip and pipe circular swirls onto baking sheet about 2 inches apart. If you dont have piping tips and bags, make marble sized balls, place on cookie sheet and press down lightly with a fork.
9. Place the baking sheet in the upper third of the oven and bake for 7 to 10 minutes, until the bottom edges of the cookies are just starting to brown.
10. Let the cookies cool on the sheet for a few minutes, then remove with a spatula. Allow to cool completely.

For the Frosting

This is optional. Although the cookies do taste really nice with a bit of frosting on top.

• 2 1/3 cups powdered sugar, plus more if needed
• 1 ½ teaspoons lemon zest
• 7 tablespoons unsalted butter slightly softened, cut into tablespoons
• 1 ½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice, plus more if needed
• 1 drop yellow liquid food coloring (optional)

1. Mix the powdered sugar and lemon zest in a bowl of standing mixer.
2. Add the butter and whiz until very little pebbles form. Add the lemon juice and food coloring and whiz until well blended and smooth.
3. Put the frosting in a pastry bag fitted with a ½-inch open star tip. Pipe frosting hats on each cooled cookie. Use your finger to smooth the edge of the frosting where it ends. Let stand until the frosting sets completely, up to 3 hours.

Note from cookandbemerry.com: If you don’t frost your cookies immediately, but store them stacked up in a container, crumbs from the bottom of the cookies may adhere to the tops of the cookies below. Before frosting, brush the crumbs off with a pastry brush. ( I didn't have this problem simply because my cookies didn't last very long. I halved the ingredients as I was just trying out this recipe)