Lemon Shortbread Cookies by The Careless Cook

 

Lemon Shortbread Cookies by The Careless Cook

 

My mother was quite the cook and baker.  I still dream about her lemon pies and cakes.  Guess that’s why lemon anything, from tea to hard candies, brings back wonderful memories of my childhood and being in her kitchen and the magic and wonder of seeing delights come out of the oven, along the simple joys of tasting the batter and licking the bowl.  Seems no matter what I cook, the trail always leads back to my mother’s kitchen

 

But, this day I was cooking for a group of twenty ladies whom I pictured sipping tea or coffee, while in the midst of conversation, which was a pleasant picture, but not relevant to cakes and pies. But the bright lemon flavor was still on my mind.

 

Despite not going for big baked treats, the Careless Cook didn’t let that stop him from creating a baker’s lemon delight!  Needed a treat that one could easily hold in one’s hand and not require the careful balancing of plate and silverware.  

 

Ah, yes.  Shortbread.  But I was in the mood for LEMON.  As I sipped my breakfast brandy and dreamt of my mother’s kitchen, it came to me.  Tasty. Convenient. A blending of the two! Voilá!  Lemon Shortbread Cookies!

 

As my three faithful readers already know, the Careless Cook does not do exasperatingly difficult recipes, with ingredients found only in the far corners of the earth, but neither does he skimp on deliciousness.

 

So, if you have a food processor, this recipe is a cinch.  If you have a bowl and a mixer, it doesn’t take much longer and even if you only have a bowl and a stick picked up when you raked the yard, stick with it. (Yes, one and all, that was a pun.)  

 

And baking in a 350ºF oven takes only 12-14 minutes. You barely have time to wake up your sweet tooth before the cookies are springing forth.

 

Lemon Shortbread Cookies

Heat the oven to 350ºF

 

Ingredients for the Cookies

 

2 sticks of butter, softened, not melted

1 cup powdered sugar

1 ½ tablespoons lemon zest (Takes about the whole skin of one lemon. More is ok, less is not.)

1 ½ tablespoons of fresh lemon juice

2 cups flour (and maybe a little more if the dough is too wet)

¾ teaspoon salt

 

Ingredients for the Glaze

 

½ cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon melted butter

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

 

Puttin’ It Together

 

1.    Toss the sugar and butter in a bowl or your food processor and beat until they are smooth.  Now toss in the lemon juice and zest and beat again.

2.     Add the flour and salt and beat until dough forms.   The dough will appear sticky, but with all that butter, it won’t stick to your hands.

3.    Roll the dough into 1 inch balls, place them on a baking sheet and gingerly flatten each ball. Depending on the size of the balls, you will end up with 30 to 35 cookies.

4.    Bake for 12-14 minutes.  Everyone’s oven has different hot spots and different bake times. My cookies took 13 minutes.

5.    Give the cookies five minutes or so after then come out of the oven, then use a spatula to move them either to your counter or to a cooling rack.

6.    Make the glaze by mixing all glaze ingredients, but do not brush it on the cookies until the cookies are cool and the glaze has thickened.  Both cooling of the cookies and thickening of the glaze will take about 30 minutes.

 

I am happy to report all the cookies disappeared and none were returned for a refund.  This gives me license to bake again, regardless of allergies or dieting.

 

So, the next time your wife is on a trip and you feel like inviting twenty ladies to the house…be sure to save some brandy.

 

 

 

 

 

Biscuits à l'Orange (orange cookies)

 

Biscuits à l’Orange:  Orange cookies by the Careless Cook

 

I like cookies.  Perhaps it’s a throwback to childhood when I followed my mother around the kitchen.  Ah the aromas! And the excitement for a child!  Often she let me stir, or when things were too difficult for my childish fingers, she would explain and show me what she was doing and why she was doing it, this way and that.  And, of course, with pies and cakes and especially cookies, she let me lick the bowl.  Magic words when she handed me the dough covered spoon or the beaters, or the spatula. I’ve written earlier about my mother’s recipe for sugar cookies.  Never saw that?  Never made her sugar cookies?  Ah, I pity you for your loss.

Mom's Sugar Cookies

 

Today I have another cookie recipe, but this one didn’t come from my mother’s kitchen.  Matter of fact, it didn’t come from anyone’s kitchen but mine.  Bold statement, not having been in everyone’s kitchen. But, hyperbole is my stock in trade.

 

These cookies require little time to make, have few ingredients, cook fast, and the icing on top is so simple even an idiot can make it. I proved that.

 

 As Mark Twin famously said, “Reader, suppose you were an idiot.  And suppose you were a member of Congress.  But, then I repeat myself.

 

Biscuits à l’Orange (Orange cookies)

Heat oven to 325ºF or 160º

Ingredients

 

2 cups all purpose flour

2 sticks butter (a cup)

1 cup fine sugar (I put regular sugar in my electric coffee grinder)

2 tablespoons of grated orange rind

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon of milk

 

The icing

2 cups powdered sugar

½ cup of milk, or maybe a little more. Be careful; you’re not making soup!

candied orange rinds for decoration (Make these while the cookies bake:  See below.)

 

Make the Cookies

 

Use a hand-mixer or food processor to cream the butter and sugar.  Add the flour and orange rind, mix well, then add the milk.

 

Roll out the dough to about a quarter inch thickness and cut into rounds.  I used a well-washed tomato paste can, with both ends removed, which gave me 28 cookies.  Put the cookie rounds on a baking sheet and slap ‘em in the pre-heated oven.  Bake for 15 minutes or until the edges are just barely starting to brown.  Note:  check the cookies once or twice on the way to 15 minutes! Every oven heats differently.

 

Candy the orange rinds

  

Cut a few tablespoons of orange rinds into very small pieces (see cookie photo)

Put them in a small pan or skillet.  Add a half water, half sugar solution and cook on low heat for about ten minutes.  Discard the sugar solution and put the candied rinds on a plate to dry and cool.

 

When the cookies are ready, move them to a room temperature surface or a cooling rack.

 

When the cookies are cool, dip or paint on the icing and immediately add some cooled candied orange rind on top of the soft icing for decoration.

 

If you didn’t make enough cookies, now you have a problem because your unruly guests will eat these by the handfuls and then want to take a bunch home.

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