Sunny Citrus Cookies

Being of the flexitarian persuasion, I am not automatically drawn to vegan recipes. In fact, some little voice in my head murmurs, "They took something out. And if I liked this recipe before, it can't be as good with something missing."

Well, these cookies are every bit as good without the egg and butter. And they're versatile. Use whatever citrus you have on hand. My favorite is lime but I also love margaritas. Orange is good, lemon is lovely.

As a child, did you like SweeTarts, Sour Bites, Lemon Drops, Spree and Smarties? Well, join the club. These cookies are for grownup us.

The original recipe is Martha Stewart's. The vegan adaptation is mine and grew out of the need to develop such offerings for my bakery employer. But people bought them (and continue to do so) because they're just plain good. In fact, we could hardly keep up with demand.

Glazed Citrus Cookies Recipe (with vegan options)
2 C all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp lemon zest
1/2 C butter or vegetable margarine like Smart Balance
1 C sugar
1 large egg or, in a 1/4 C measure, place 3 tsp soy milk and fill remainder with vegetable oil
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. In medium bowl, whisk together flour, soda, salt and lemon zest.

In bowl of mixer, cream butter/vegetable margarine and add sugar, beating until fluffy. Add egg or substitute mixture, vanilla and lemon juice and mix until combined. On low speed, add in flour mixture. Drop dough by rounded teaspoons onto 2 baking sheets - I get 2 dozen of this size.

Bake 15 to 20 minutes, until  edges begin to brown, rotating pans at the halfway point. The vegan version will be slightly flatter, with butter, a bit taller. Cool for 2 minutes and transfer to wire rack. When cool to the touch, mix glaze below and brush or drizzle over.

1 C powdered sugar
zest and juice of 1 lemon

Happy Spring!

Shortbread Shamrocks with Green Tea Icing

This seems like a good week for keeping things simple. With only five ingredients and a couple of steps, shortbread cookies make up for those relationships where you did all the work.

Shortbread Recipe

1 cup butter
3/4 cup powdered sugar, plus 1 cup for icing
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups plain flour

green tea extract
light corn syrup

Preheat oven to 350. Cream butter in bowl of mixer, then add powdered sugar 1/4 cup at a time, continuing to mix on low speed until sugar is incorporated. Add vanilla and mix. Add flour, 1/2 cup at a time, again while gently mixing, only until ingredients are incorporated.

At this point, you can just press two rounds of dough onto a large baking sheet and cut into 8 wedges each to bake for 20 to 25 minutes. If you have a bit more energy and are craving shapes, roll out onto floured board to about 1/2" thickness and cut out. The buttery dough makes greasing your baking sheets unnecessary.

I baked my shamrocks for about 15 minutes, until the sides started to brown slightly, then cooled on a rack so they were ready for icing. Per my usual glossy ice, I added green tea concentrate (instead of milk) to a cup of powdered sugar until good spreading/drizzling consistency, then added a teaspoon of light corn syrup for shine. Drizzle this over cooled cookies. Now, what do you take in your tea?

Constant craving: Iced cream cheese sugar cookies.

It's been way longer than I intended since my last post. But life, day jobs and blizzards sometimes intrude and what are you going to do? Make cookies, I say.

Valentine's Day is just around the corner and in fact there are holidays all year long that beckon us to dig through our recipes for a way to celebrate that's not only tasty, but kinda cute. Of course, we've all been victims of those beautifully adorned but utterly bland celebratory desserts and those experiences (plus the fact that some of our formerly enthusiastic toddlers are now 6 feet tall) caused us to put away our cookie cutters.

But maybe you're like me and some days you just want something adorable on your plate and you want it to taste darn good with your favorite cup of tea. And maybe you want it to be pretty and tempting enough to share with say, your fellow cube farmers, or maybe you still know some first-graders who appreciate your skills. What you need is the recipe I'm about to divulge, the much-tested, now published (on the first page of the first cookbook I ever edited), go-to cookie that my kids always loved to make. There's cream cheese in the dough that gives them actual flavor in addition to the almond and vanilla. They're simple, fool-proof and if you're typing away at 2 a.m., are perfect with whatever you're drinking.

Tyler and Laura's cream cheese sugar cookies:

1 C sugar
1C butter, softened
3 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 egg yolk, reserving egg white to decorate
2 C plain flour

Preheat oven to 375. In large bowl, use mixer to cream butter with sugar, then cream cheese. Add next 4 ingredients, blending well, then add flour and mix until incorporated. Refrigerate 1 to 2 hours, which really makes them easy to work with. On lightly floured surface, roll out dough, one-third at a time, to desired thickness, and cut into shapes with lightly floured cookie cutters. Depending on the size of your cookies, this recipe makes 4 dozen or so.

Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet (they will spread a tad). Leave plain or brush with egg white and sprinkle on colored sugar, or paint with a mixture of 1 beaten egg yolk and 1/4 tsp of water and food coloring for "stained glass" effect. Bake 10 minutes or so, depending on your oven, until they begin to brown lightly at the edges. Cool a few minutes in the pan, then transfer to rack.

As you can see, I like to frost mine with this simple, glossy ice:
Mix 2 C powdered sugar and 6 tsp. milk (adjust for your desired consistency), then add 4 tsp. of light corn syrup and food coloring.

 

Save some white icing and thicken a bit to pipe dots, stripes or whatever you like on the iced cookies.

I found the pink boxes below at our local Michael's store and packed up some cookies for the couple next door who welcomed a new baby girl into their hearts this week. Before they know it, she'll be wanting to drag out the cookie cutters to bake some shapes of her own.

Thought I'd show off these last lovelies on the plate I received from my brother and his sweetie for Christmas. I think they might just be for the baker...