Monday, March 10, 2008

Just your normal sugar cookie

Bear with me here: this was my first attempt at making sugar cookies. I know, I know, it's the staple of the cookie-diet but for my entire childhood I left that to my middle brother. For some inexplicable reason, there were a couple things I was much more comfortable having my brother make for me. Sugar cookies was one of them. Bacon was the other.

Ok, I was just lazy. But dang he made good sugar cookies/bacon! Anyhow, I figured it was time to try my hand at them. I had lemons I wanted to use though, so these are special sugar cookies. Lemon zested and glazed, you've got a chewy cookie with a tangy bite that fades into comforting sugar. Mmmmm.

But see, I shouldn't be allowed to blog. This talk of sugar cookies and bacon has me pondering a combo. I'm not crazy: it's a fad! Or if I'm crazy I'm in good company.

Ingredients:
* 1 cup unsalted butter
* 1 2/3 cup granulated sugar
* 2 large eggs
* 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
* 3 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
* 3/4 tsp. salt
* 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
* Zest of 2 lemons
* 1-2 cup powdered sugar
* Lemon juice (sorry I can't be more precise)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs, vanilla and lemon zest. Mix together the flour, salt and baking powder. Fold the flour into the butter mixture.

Roll dough into a log and wrap in wax paper; refrigerate at least 1 hour. Slice into 1/4 inch slices and arrange on an ungreased cookie sheet (they will not expand much.) Bake 10-12 minutes, until very lightly golden. Remove and cool completely before adding glaze.

For glaze: combine powdered sugar and lemon juice (a tbsp at a time) until you have a thick almost-paste that falls slowly from the fork (you can test this within your mixing bowl.) Drizzle over cooled cookies.

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