If you're a newbie to cookie baking, come check this out. Even if you mess up a step or two, the lemon cookies here still turned out great. Take what happened to me for instance, my butter wasn't softened enough but I went ahead and started mixing with other ingredients. Guess what? It's ok. It's totally fine. Perhaps the cookies might not have the best texture in the end, but I assure you they were soft and filled with lovely lemony aroma.
Here's my second instance, I didn't even beat the butter mixture till super fluffy. Well, because the butter I used was still too hard to do so. Even that, the end result was a bunch of nicely baked cookies. These two examples should give you enough confidence that this is definitely a foolproof cookie recipe.
Foolproof rustic lemon cookies -
Ingredients (about 16 to 18 pieces)?
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 lemon
- 2 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- Some confectioners' sugar
How?
Leave the butter in room temperature for at least 30 minutes before working on the dough. I guess I didn't leave it out long enough, plus the weather is chilly right now so my butter wasn't as soft when I started making the cookies. Either way, the result was still pretty satisfying.
Take a big container, add in softened butter along with 3/4 cup of granulated sugar and zest of two lemons. Beat till combined, or try your best if the butter still holds a semi-solid form.
Take another bowl, beat together 2 eggs, freshly squeezed lemon juice just from 1/2 lemon. Also add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Mix till incorporated.
Pour the egg mixture to the butter mixture. Blend till incorporated, but slightly chunky is fine if you're working with not too soft butter like me.
Take one bigger container, sift in flour, baking powder, and salt. Pour the powder ingredients to the wet ingredients in two batches. After first batch, mix till almost fully incorporated then pour in the second batch. Mix again till well blended.
The final dough will be on the sticky side. I actually used my hands to do the final mix towards the end. Once ready, cover with cling foil and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
When the dough is almost done chilling in the fridge, let's preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit/175 degrees Celsius. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Prep a bowl filled with some confectioners' sugar.
Take the chilled dough out. Use a spoon or a scoop to measure the dough, form the dough to a small ball then roll into the confectioners' sugar. Transfer sugared ball to the baking sheet. Repeat for the remaining dough. Remember to leave some space in between. The dough will expand a little during baking.
Press down the dough a bit. I actually left the dough too close to one another. That's because I was trying to fit in the last couple dough to the sheet. I'd rather overcrowd them instead of baking the second batch. See, even that my cookies turned out fine.
Into the oven for about 12 minutes. Once ready, take out the baking sheet and leave the cookies untouched till completely cooled off.
During the baking process, if the cookies appear rather pale on the surface, that means you'll have soft cookies in the end. If you prefer a crunchier texture, either bake a little bit longer or turn up the heat towards the end. That way you'll get a slightly browned surface, which means crunchier bite.
By the way, if you're aiming for soft cookies, it is especially important try not to pick up the cookies when they're fresh from the oven. The cookies can fall apart easily if they're still warm.
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