Monthly Archives: April 2011

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

I guess the theme of the moment on this blog is lemon–lemon bars, lemon cookies, and an upcoming lemon pasta. There’s just something about the fresh zestiness of lemons that feels so optimistic and spring-like to me. These cookies (click here for the original recipe) have a very delicate lemon flavor–there’s no punch, just a lingering hint of sunshine. So if you’re looking for a knockout wollop of lemon on your tongue you can always increase the quantity of lemon zest. But seriously, they’re lovely exactly as they are.

I love the texture, which is somehow soft and chewy and crisp all at the same time. So when life gives you lemons, please ignore the old saying and make these cookies instead.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1 tsp lemon zest (triple for more punch)

1 TBS fresh lemon juice

1 1/2 cups flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

1/3 cup powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease two light-colored baking trays with butter or cooking spray.

Now dump the butter and granulated sugar into a mixing bowl.

Cream the butter and granulated sugar together until they’re fluffy.

Zest that lemon!

How I love my microplane. It makes zesting a lemon so much less . . . dangerous.

Add the vanilla, the egg, lemon juice, and lemon zest, and whip.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl . . .

. . . and whip again until evenly mixed.

Measure in all the dry ingredients (except for the powdered sugar) . . .

. . . and stir gently until just combined.

It’s much easier to use a spoon or spatula to finish off this part.

Spread the powdered sugar out on a plate.

Roll the dough into little balls the size of a heaping teaspoon, then roll them in the powdered sugar.

I knew I was going to have problems getting all the little spheres to be uniform, so I rolled them all first before sugaring them up. You should end up with about 24 of them.

Place them on the greased baking sheets . . .

. . . and bake for 9-11 minutes until the bottom of the cookies is barely getting golden and the tops have a matte finish (not shiny or glossy). Take the baking sheets out of the oven, and let the cookies sit on the baking sheets for 3 minutes before removing them to a cooling rack. When they first come out, they look kind of poofy and rounded on top.

 As they sit, they will collapse ane get . . .

. . . crinkly!

And that’s why they’re called Lemon Crinkle Cookies.

If you’re totally getting whacked out of shape by the changes in lighting in these pictures, please know that I was happily using my external flash in my almost-always-dark-kitchen, but around 5:30 pm, light briefly floods through our little alley-facing window. It goes away a few minutes later, but I seized the moment and snapped away sans flash.

I should also mention that if you’re using a darker colored baking sheet, the cookies will need about 2 minutes less in the oven.

Here they are innocently sitting on the cooling rack.

Little do they know that I’m about to . . .

CHOMP!

It’s not cruel–I’m helping them fulfill their destiny.

Click here for printer-friendly version: Lemon Crinkle Cookies

The many faces of baby James

I hope you all are in a baby-type mood. Because during my sister Heidi’s visit with her new little son, I took about 500 pictures.

I’ll only share a select few on my blog, I told myself. I’ll pick the cutest ones, give them a quick run through Photoshop, and that will be that.

Sunday evening I settled in on the couch with the Mac and started looking through the pictures, picking ones that I liked and tossing them into Photoshop. The problem is, I liked all of them.

This means that you will be seeing a whole heck of a lot of baby James ’round these parts.

What do you think I am, some kind of male baby model or something? Because I got a brain inside this gorgeous bod, alright! It’s not all about my good looks, capeesh?

Despite baby James’ reservations, his modeling abilities are not to be denied. I mean, his own father won a ‘cutest baby contest‘ in his infancy, lest you forget. So you will be seeing the following in the weeks to come: baby James and grandma, baby James and grandpa, baby James with his gorgeous mama, baby James sleeping, awake, laughing, and crying.

But not baby James pooping. I still haven’t reconciled myself to the fact that something so gross could come out of something so cute.

I will choose to live in denial . . . for now.

You mean you don’t think my poop is cute??

But I don’t understand!

Multitudes of hilarious expressions parade across his tiny face. Most of them flicker in and out in rapid succession, but he held that surprised look above for about 10 solid seconds.

I always look suspiciously at those who pounce on babies and immediately start talking in a high-pitched, squealy version of themselves, gurgling baby talk and shooting exaggerated facial expressions baby-wards.

And then I became one of them. See, it turns out that when I open my mouth really wide, bug out my eyes and stick out my tongue, baby James laughs.

And once you hear a baby laugh, it’s like an immediately addiction. I will go into withdrawal if I don’t hear that baby laugh again. So you make that goofy face over and over and over again.

I became a ridiculous person because of this baby. In fact, I made a baby-gawking spectacle of myself. I tickled him, contorted my face and made squealy noises repeatedly.

And strangely, I don’t regret it at all.

I also introduced him to his first bottle of wine and taught him how to have a good time in Chicago:

Just kidding. But that funny little face was too priceless to withhold from y’all.

And that little bear suit! Oh, the bear suit.

Come back, baby James! I never thought I would miss a baby . . . but I miss you!

Of course, I can’t even talk about what this vision does to my heart:

In fact, I can’t look at this picture more than once per week. The consequences would be . . . severe. Drastic. Life-changing.

Cheers everyone! I hope you all have a baby in your life to snuggle when the need arises.