With summer coming to a close, I decided to give lemons a last hurrah in my kitchen. Double chocolate chip is delicious, but to me seems better on a cold winter night. Microwave one of those bad boys with a cool glass of milk--perfect. Chocolate ooey gooeyness on an uber humid and hot night? Less appealing (but perhaps not to you serious chocoholics out there).
And then lemon sables or lemon whoopie pies? Lemon sables are a favorite of my mom's, and that's most likely for their subtle lemon taste and buttery texture. Remember how I decided on giving lemon's a last hurrah? Well, if it's a hurrah that I want, I'm going to end my August with a lemony bang. I want lemon oozing out of these cookie's pores--and so it was decided, lemon whoopie pies!
Given all the time I spent deciding, it's funny that I made none of my three choices. As I was baking these cookies, I realized how gigantic they would be! Two cookies and frosting. I myself was wary about tackling one of these monstrous(ly good) cookies. So I figured my fellow guests would be too. And the project quickly became one for Frosted Lemon Cookies.
These cookies are delicious. The recipe is very loosely based off of Joy the Baker's Lemon Whoopie Pies, but I changed the sugar and lemon elements rather significantly. When I made her recipe in the Spring, I found the cookies to be very bland and not lemony at all. As a result, I made some increases in the recipe's lemon demands. Also, I decreased the sugar by 25% because I never really like too much sugar in my cookies anyway. I'm not brave enough to decrease it by 50% yet, but I may consider it in the near future. So far, I've worked on one project of Blueberry Muffin where the food turned out fine after I cut the sugar in half.
I was so happy to use the Offset Spatula that M got for me this summer! Let me tell you, frosting with this tool is way easier (last time I frosted Green Tea Cupcakes with a normal spatula and ended up with a very sore wrist).
 |
| I'd say Frosted Lemon Cookies is a pretty spectacular inauguration for my baby. |
...
The zest gives some nice color accents, no?
These cookies are good freshly baked, but on a hot summer day I think they taste better refrigerated. It's something akin to the joy of drinking fresh iced lemonade when it's sweltering hot.
Frosted Lemon Cookies
 |
| Looking at (and eating) these lemon cookies really kept my spirits up on this rainy day. |
Frosted Lemon Cookies
Recipe makes approximately 4 dozen cookies
Ingredients:
For the cake
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
12 tbsp butter
1 + 1/2 cup sugar
The zest of 5 lemons -- minus the 1 tsp needed for the frosting
2 eggs
The juice of 5 lemons -- minus the 4 tbsp needed for the frosting
1 cup buttermilk
For the frosting
12 tbsp butter
12 oz cream cheese
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon zest
4 tbsp lemon juice
5 + 1/2 cups powdered sugar
Note: This above frosting recipe made almost double the frosting of what I needed. One option is to keep the frosting for a lemon cake! I would highly recommend Baking With Em & M's Lemon Cake--use a cake pan and you can slather on the extra frosting onto it! Her recipe is for a bundt cake, but read her Red Velvet Cake post for information on how to prep the cake pan and for baking times. I think this cream cheese lemon frosting on a lemon cake would be divine (Perhaps I will try it one day...). You wouldn't have to bake the cake on the same day because you can refrigerate the frosting. If making a separate lemon cake is not to your liking, you can simply cut the amounts in half.
If you do choose to make half the frosting, I've put the new values here:
6 tbsp butter
6 oz cream cheese
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp lemon zest
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 + 3/4 cups powdered sugar
Note that using these new values will also leave you with more lemon elements for the cookie batter! This is just fine, because the cookies are only moderately lemony. So adding extra would not cause some kind of lemon overdose (which I don't think is a problem anyway…).
Recipe:
For the lemons
[1] Wash the lemons with soap and water. Rinse and then dry.
[2] Using a grater, zest the lemons. Try to restrict your zesting to the yellow outermost part of the lemon and to avoid the white layer underneath. The yellow layer gives it the lemony flavor; the white gives it bitterness. This piece of advice is not a hard and fast rule, but is a general guideline.
[3] Cut the lemons in half and squeeze the juice into a bowl.
[4] Pour the juice into another bowl slowly; if you do it right, the seeds will stay to the bottom of the other bowl. An easier way would be to pour the lemon juice (seeds and all) through a strainer.
For the cookies
[0] Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
[1] In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.
[2] In a large bowl, combine the butter (it's easiest to work with at room temperature), sugar, and lemon zest. Use an electric mixer at medium speed until smooth (about 3 minutes).
[3] Add the eggs, lemon juice, and vanilla. Mix at medium for about 1 minute until even.
[4] Add in half of the dry ingredient mixture you prepared earlier. (I recommend mixing it in lightly with a fork before turning on the electric mixer. That save your front side from getting sprayed with flour etc.
[5] Add the buttermilk. Mix it in on low speed.
[6] Add the rest of the dry ingredients. Mix on low until even.
[7] Place about 1 tbsp of dough onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. If you want bigger, fatter cookies, I recommend getting a large tbsp of dough (these end up being thick and cake like.) If you you want thinner cookies, use slightly less than a tbsp of dough. I did some of each, so I could please the two different cookie populations.
[8] Bake for around 12-14 minutes until there is a faint brown outline around the cookie's edge. Time may be modified--the key element is that if you insert a toothpick or fork into the cookie, it can be removed cleanly. Upon completion, the undersides should be have some general browning. While baking, around 6 minutes (the halfway point), rearrange the baking pans top-bottom and front-back. In other words, what was on the left, should now go to the right. What was deepest in the oven should now be closest to the oven's from door.
[9] Let cookies cool for approximately 10 minutes before applying frosting.
For the frosting
[1] Using an electric beater, mix and smush around (for lack of better descriptors) the butter. When it's reasonably mushed, add half the cream cheese. Mix it together.
[2] Add the rest of the cream cheese, along with the vanilla, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Mix together until even on medium speed.
[3] Add the powdered sugar in one cup at a time. After I added each cup, I recommend mixing it around with a fork prior to using the electric mixer. This prevents a mini sugar explosion in your face and on your clothes.
[4] Add a dollop of frosting to each cookie and use spatula to smooth.
[5] Serve at room temperature or refrigerate prior to serving. Cookies store for up to 4 days.
