How did I end up in such a fix this past Sunday? I had committed to making lemon cookies for a teacher's luncheon, that's how. And I just had to decide to bake from scratch instead of a mix, didn't I? My plan was to use this recipe I had found on one of my favorite i-phone apps, Allrecipes. Incidentally, my multi-talented friend The Nervous Chef., also described a partiality to allrecipes.
Now, I love to cook, but my feelings about baking are more reserved. Baking can be great creative fun, but I find it less forgiving than a lot of cooking, and doing it requires some acts of faith: once the dough is made, I have to shove it into the dry oven heat and relinquish control, waiting for the final results. Also my main priority these days is feeding my family of four. So my baking plans seem less practical, and they often get shelved along with the flour and baking powder. Yet, every few months, I get this inexplicable urge to tackle some floury, sweet treat from scratch. Maybe it relates to some of those early warm memories I associate with Maria: Waking up to the delectable smell of warm buttermilk biscuits on weekend mornings; trying to shape the sticky, playdoh-like dough of corn tortillas into flat circles; and painstakingly trying to shape raw ladyfingers into uniform crescents before sliding them into the oven, all under her patient, amused tutelage.
Anyway, for whatever reason, my committment to the teacher's luncheon sparked a desire to create from scratch. So here are the results:
Attempt #1: A disaster. I tried for lemon cookies and got a Big Goopy Lemon of a dish. Within five minutes of the little round dough balls sitting in the oven, they all melted down into a runny, buttery pond. What the heck happened?! I tried frantically to reconstruct my mistake as I pulled the trays out of the oven and peeled the bubbling mess off the parchment paper. (Hint: parchment paper makes clean-up a lot easier!) I consulted the recipe again, and realized that in my haste, I had followed the "suggestions" posted under the original recipe, but it wasn't complete. I had left out the eggs, and had added not nearly enough flour. But I was a woman with a mission and a load of silly pride, so I kept going.
Attempt #2: Better. This attempt yielded little lemon scones that were surprisingly not bad. My husband adored them, which took the edge off my frustration. OK so that is what happens when you add too much flour, and 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder. Good to know, but I really needed cookies. One more try.
Attempt #3: Finally, cookies! I added not as much flour, and didn't bother with the baking powder at all. Plus, I added a few drops of Boyajian Pure Lemon Oil* purchased last week at Dean & Deluca in Georgetown, and reduced the lemonade concentrate to about 2 tablespoons.
In addition, I tweaked this lemon-icing recipe, substituting the lemon oil again for the lemon juice, but still adding 1 drop of red food coloring to give it a pinkish hue. My oldest son stepped up to the plate and beat the lumps in the icing into submission. (Children can have an amazing amount of patience for such tasks. They would make any 17th-century chef proud.) The result was a satiny-smooth icing. I poured about half of it over the cookies, storing the remainder in the fridge.
By this point, about 2 1/2 hours later, my kitchen was a wreck, and I was spent. Plus it was past the kids' bedtime by about 30 minutes. But I felt my mission for luncheon cookies was accomplished.
Now, what to do with the remaining icing? Hmmm...
To be continued!
*This oil is unparalleled for a pure, rich lemon scent and taste.
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