I absolutely love to bake - the problem is that I also like to eat it all (but I didn't say of what... it doesn't matter.) See when I cook I tend to think my efforts yield a sub par result. My taste buds by the time I'm done with a main course are not salivating but are often underwhelmed by all that effort that was just put in. That is not the case when it comes to baking. Maybe it's the high contents of sugar and butter involved, but any way you go about it I love to bake and consume what is baked.
I am always looking for something new to try and whip up when I find the time. Between a lack of sleep and a lack of motivation derived from sleep deprivation baking is often on the back burner (ha!) of life. Every now and then I come across a motivator (often found on Pinterest) that gets my creative juices flowing and I head to the kitchen.
Yesterday that was a lemon crinkle cookie. After the kids went to bed I got to work. For a brief moment I thought that I had run out of sugar and while I searched the cupboard for some I laughed at the thought of having to go to the neighbor's house to borrow a cup of sugar. Eventually I found my massive bag tucked in the back and refilled the easy access container that lives on the counter top.
Next I started to zest a lemon. I have to say I find zesting to be a really fun activity. Don't ask why, I don't really know... but I love it. With all the ingredients out and measured - the mixing began! With two sleeping children - that often don't sleep with any duration or regularity I find having everything premeasured before beginning the mixing process works great. This way if I am interrupted I can either ask the husband to dump stuff in OR more likely, I won't be distracted and dump in tablespoons of salt when teaspoons were asked for.
For this recipe I looked at several different ones around Pinterest and ended up doing my own adaptation of ingredients and amounts of them, but as far as directions I followed Lauren's Latest
Ingredients (makes about 2-3 dozen):
½ cups butter, softened
1 C. sugar
1 t. Vanilla Extract
1 egg (room temp)
1 organic* lemon zested (about 2 T. worth)
2 T. fresh lemon juice
¼ t. salt
¼ t. baking powder
⅛ t. baking Soda
1 ½ C. flour
Powdered Sugar
Directions:Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In the mixer using the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon zest and juice. Scrape sides and mix again. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet, squish it down a bit (I know totally a technical term!) and repeat with remaining dough.
Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte {not melty or shiny}. Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack. If using a non stick darker baking tray, reduce baking time by about 2 minutes.
Ok one more picture of my cookies with a lemon...because it's the thing to do.
One last thing!
* You want to use organic anything if you are putting the outer shell of citrus into whatever it is you're cooking. The pesticides that are used on non-organic lemons (oranges, grapefruits, etc..) are not held to a edible standard by the FDA because that part of the fruit is not consider part of the edible fruit. Therefore, no amount of 'mild soap scrubbing' is worth the what-ifs associated with what else you're zesting into your cookies. Bleck! Buy organic, at least for zesting if not for other reasons. :)
1 comment:
YUM. I love lemon these might have to get tried soon. I made Joy the Baker's vanilla bean snickerdoodles over the weekend (to send to Erik) which were DELISH. yay for baking weekends!
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