One of our favorite places to be is in the kitchen. We love to bake and cook and it all stemmed from our mom's passion of cooking. She would find a recipe that she loved, and then make it all year long. We used to say, "That was the year of the cheesecakes" or "That was the year of cinnamon rolls." Some of our fondest memories revolve around cooking together in the kitchen. We love to get together as family and contribute our best recipes for the meal. And we are constantly calling each other saying, "You've got to try this recipe!" We'd like to share our favorite recipes with you. So, happy cooking, happy baking, happy eating, and then happy exercising afterwards to burn those calories!


Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Lemon Zester Cookies

My favorite cookies at Paradise Bakery are the Lemon Zester Cookies. It was Spring Break for me in Arizona, and close to 100 degrees outside. While visiting my sister in Utah we stopped by the Paradise Bakery there and I was so excited to get me a Lemon Zester Cookie (or maybe 6 of them). When I asked if they had any, they said they would in the spring. But I said, "It is the spring." Then I remembered that it was snowing outside and I was gonna have to wait until I got back home to get me my cookie!

After that trip I vowed to find a recipe that tasted as close to my favorite cookie as possible so I wouldn't have to wait all winter long to get me one! I found one and with a few tweeks to the recipe, I think this is pretty close to the real deal!

Lemon Zester Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
- zest of 6 lemons (just 5 if the lemons are large)

- 1 cup granulated sugar

- 1 cup powdered sugar

- 2 cups shortening

- 3/4 tsp. vanilla

- 1 (3 oz.) package lemon Jell-O (not the pudding, but the gelatin)

- yellow food coloring (I use food gel...a little of this stuff goes a long way)

- 1 large egg, beaten

- 4 1/3 cups cake flour (important to NOT use all-purpose flour)

- 3/4 tsp. baking soda

- 3/4 tsp. baking powder

- 1/4 tsp. salt

- powdered sugar for decorating

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium bowl, stir the zest of the lemons and the 1 cup of granulated sugar. The sugar should turn yellow and get sticky. To this bowl add the powdered sugar and shortening and mix using an electric mixer. Mix on slow speed for 30 seconds, then scrape down the bowl with a spatula. Increase the speed to medium and mix for 3 minutes. Slowly add the vanilla, Jell-O (just the dry powder), food dye, and beaten egg while mixing. In a separate bowl, combine cake flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Gradually add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture, mixing on slow speed until just blended. Do not overmix.

Scoop cookie dough into a ball and roll in some powdered sugar. (I personally like my cookies a lot larger than normal size, so I used the largest of the Pampered Chef cookie dough scoopers. If you don't have one, then just make it a little bit larger...so when you might normally be able to fit a dozen cookies on a cookie sheet, I can fit about 9 on a sheet).

Bake in the oven for about 5 minutes. Take the pan out and smoosh them down a little with a spatula. Turn the pan around so what used to be in back is now in front and put back in the oven for another 4 minutes. Cookies are done when small cracks appear and are pale golden. Ideally, do not let the edges brown.

Let them cool about 1 minute then sprinkle the top with more powdered sugar. Let them cool a few more minutes before removing from the pan.





at 11:46 AM

1 comment:

  1. ClarissaSeptember 21, 2021 at 7:37 PM

    Bless you for this recipe. It’s the closest thing I’ve found to the lemon zester. I’m still missing something, though. I’m not sure what it is. Have you tried adding lemon juice and/or sour cream to give it that tangy note?

    ReplyDelete

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