Saturday, August 4, 2012

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Lemon Crinkle Cookies - made dough July 28, 2012, recipe adapted from The Royal Cook blog

Switching back to a "summer flavor" in the form of lemon cookies - this was the third cookie dough I made on my I'm-still-jet-lagged day.  I found it on one of my link parties and pinned it to get back to later. This follows the same idea of chocolate crinkles except it's a lemon cookie dough ball that you roll in powdered sugar before baking. I increased the flour by 1/4 cup as the dough was again a bit soft and I didn't want the cookies to spread too much.  I also increased the amount of lemon zest in the dough because I wanted to make sure the lemon cookies were, well, lemony.  Recipe below reflects my modifications.

This was a very good cookie.  It's like a cross between a lemon sugar cookie and a lemon bar in cookie form.  It didn't spread too much and it had a nice balance of sweet and tart.  I did a test cookie rolled in powdered sugar as the recipe directs and it was good but you can also roll it in granulated sugar.  Be careful not to overbake this as part of the goodness is in the moist texture of the cookie.  I liked it just slightly underbaked when the edges are barely beginning to brown and the middle is just past raw and are barely done.

½ cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 teaspoon lemon zest (or all of the zest from 1 medium to large lemon)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking powder
⅛ teaspoon baking soda
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup powdered sugar
  1. In a large bowl, 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 except for the powdered sugar slowly until just combined. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly.  Form into dough balls and chill until firm or freeze overnight.
  2. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
  3. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll cookie dough balls in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet, evenly spaced apart.
  4. 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.
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5 comments:

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  2. These look fantastic. One question: In step two I roll them into balls and chill. In step four I roll them into balls again. I'm not trying to nit-pick, but am wondering: Do I put them in the oven frozen? If they are frozen, will they pick up any powdered sugar?

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    Replies
    1. Hi - sorry, I need to fix the directions. You roll them into balls in step 2, chill or freeze them, then roll the frozen balls in powdered sugar, and bake directly. Freezing them will help them spread less. And yes, the powdered sugar will adhere to frozen cookie dough balls (mine did).

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    2. They're great! I froze them for about 90 minutes and the powdered sugar stuck fine. I added a little bit halfway through baking so they'd be prettier.



      Thanks!

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    3. So glad you liked them! Thanks for letting me know, that's always fun to hear.

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