Monday, April 13, 2009

Glazed Lemon Cookies



For those of you who love glazed lemon cookies (Palline di Limone), the ultimate Italian comfort cookie, here's my recipe.  I've dedicated it to my son, Jonah, who adores these cookies and when he's in New York, he travels to DeLillo's, his favorite Italian pastry shop in the Bronx, to buy a bag of their lemon cookies (if there aren't any in my cookie jar.)

Glazed Lemon Cookies

Dedicated to Jonah Rosenberg

Yield approx. 5 dozen

Ingredients:

4 c. all purpose flour

1 Tbsp. bp

½ tsp. kosher salt

4 oz. unsalted butter, room temperature

¾ c. sugar

4 large eggs, room temperature

2 tsp. lemon extract

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 Tbsp. grated lemon zest

¼ c. whole milk, room temperature 

For the icing:

1 1/2 c. 10X (confectioner's) sugar


3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice (more or less to desired consistency)

Procedure:

Combine flour, bp and salt  and set aside.

In large bowl of electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides as needed.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides as needed until light, fluffy and well incorporated.  Towards the end of this process, add the extracts and the zest.

Lower the speed and stir in half the flour mixture until just incorporated, then the milk, then the remainder of the flour mixture.  Stir until thoroughly incorporated , but do not overmix.

Press a piece of plastic wrap down to cover the batter and refrigerate for at least one hour or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350º

Scoop 1” balls of dough and place them on parchment or silpat lined cookie sheets.  Don’t handle them too much or ‘pack’ them too tightly, or they’ll become dense and leaden.  Less is more (again and again.)  Place 2” apart on sheets and bake for 12-13 minutes, until puffed but not browned.  The bottoms will be slightly browned.  Transfer to wire racks to cool.

Make the icing:  Whisk the lemon juice into the confectioner’s sugar.

While cookies are still slightly warm, dip the domes into the icing and return to the racks to dry and cool.  

These keep quite well (if they stick around long enough.)  They freeze well too.



 


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