Frosted Lemon Cookies

I have seen some of my blogger friends asking where does the time go, and I would like some help with that question! It seems like I just shared my Easter Cookie Cups, and here we are already to May's "Fill the Cookie Jar"! This month the theme is "Mother's Favorites". 

 I turned the cookie decision process over to my mom, and she requested "Lemon". Other than that, Mom left it up to me. I made a couple different recipes, and this one was the hit. Loved by all, and requests for more!

It is a soft, chewy, bright flavored cookie, with the lemon zest bringing the lemon flavor to the top! These cookies were just as popular without the frosting, so if you are looking to save time, or calories, feel free to skip it! They will be just as popular.

If you are interested in joining Fill The Cookie Jar group on facebook, fill out the form that can be found at Fill The Cookie Jar. Each month we bake a different theme for the cookie.

We bake, we share and we enjoy our cookies!

Lemon Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk
2 tsp lemon juice
Zest from one lemon
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder


Frosting
6 Tablespoon butter, softened
1 Tablespoon, plus 1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 tsp lemon extract
2 cups powdered sugar
Sprinkles or colored sugar, optional

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg (plus one egg yolk), mix well. Add lemon juice, and zest, mixing until combined.  Slowly add flour, baking powder, and salt.  Mix until dough forms a ball. Cover and chill dough for at least one hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.  Using small cookie scoop, drop dough onto cookie sheet two to three inches apart.  Bake for 9-11 minutes, just until edges are starting to turn golden. Cool for 5 minutes on cookie sheet, then transfer to cooling rack.

While cookies are cooling, in large mixing bowl add butter, lemon juice, and lemon extract. Mix until smooth and creamy. Slowly add powdered sugar, mixing until desired consistency for spreading. Add more powdered sugar as needed, if you want it thicker. Frost when cookies are completely cooled.

**For the bright colored decorating sugar: Put 3 Tablespoons granulated sugar in a small bag. Add 1/8 tsp of yellow gel food coloring. Squish the gel and the sugar around for a couple minutes until the two are completely mixed together.

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Meyer Lemon Coffee Cake

Sometimes, you find a recipe that you just know you have to try! That's what happened when I found Meyer Lemon Coffee Cake. I was craving spring flavors and truth be told, I had never had a Meyer Lemon before. I have read many recipe's calling for them, I see them at the co-op, but I had never actually tried one before. This was the time to finally try them!

The coffee cake was delicious. LOTS of struesel. If you love struesel, then this is a recipe you have to try! I do love the Meyer Lemons. I will be trying them again in my next lemon recipe.

Meyer Lemon Coffee Cake (Source: Bake, Run, Live.  Adapted from: Martha Stewart)


Streusel Topping:
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter

Cake:
2 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons Meyer lemon zest (you will need 4 to 5 lemons)
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup Greek yogurt

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons Meyer lemon juice


Struesel Directions:
In medium-sized bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, and salt. Cut in the butter until it resembles small pebbles. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Cake Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter or grease a 9-inch angel food cake pan, set aside.
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In large mixing bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, and lemon zest. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add in the eggs, one at a time, and then the vanilla. Scrape down the sides of bowl. On low speed, add the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the Greek yogurt.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan.  Sprinkle the chilled streusel evenly over the batter. Bake in preheated oven for 50-55 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center, comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, run a knife along all the edges of the pan. Remove the outer ring and let cool completely. To remove cake from bottom of pan, run a knife along the center tube, then gently slide two large wide spatulas between cake and pan. Carefully lift from pan, and let cool on rack.

Glaze Directions
Shortly before serving, whisk together the powdered sugar and the Meyer lemon juice, in a small bowl. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cake and let it set for 5 minutes before cutting and serving.


Printable Recipe

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Lemon Honey Cake

Truckin' Man's birthday was yesterday. I always like to do my best and make the day special for him. Gift selection was unusually challenging this year, but I finally figured out the perfect gift. It would take to long to have it shipped, so I would have to go shopping. But, the weather did not cooperate with my last minute shopping, and when you live in the sticks, you are often at the mercy of the weather. . . . . Well, at least during the winter. I ended up finding some other gifts in my local town, he was happy, and that is what matters.

His birthday cake is very important to me.  A cake means so much to him, so I want it to always be special. Rather than a traditional birthday cake, I wanted to make a lemon cake this year. Lemon cake is his all time favorite, problem was I had never made a lemon cake from scratch. Did I resort to a box? Just make something else? After searching through my favorite baking blogs, I found "THE" recipe. The one that caught my attention, the one that I felt he would love, was from Janet at From Cupcakes to Caviar with the winning recipe of Lemon Honey Cupcakes.  I didn't have time to test cupcakes versus cakes, so I checked with Janet on her thoughts.  With her help, I made what I believe is hands down, the best cake I have ever ever baked. Truckin' Man agree's, he absolutely loves this cake. From the sounds of it, I didn't send nearly enough with him in the truck today. Ooops!

Lemon Honey Cake (Adapted From: From Cupcakes to Caviar)

2 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder 
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c. light sour cream
1/4 c. milk
1 1/2 tsp. lemon extract
3 Tbsp grated lemon zest
1/3 c. lemon juice
3/4 c. unsalted butter, softened
3/4 c. honey
1/4 c. sugar
3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 9x13 cake pan with parchment paper. Grease the parchment paper and sides of pan.

In mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients. Set aside.  In a small bowl, whisk sour cream, milk, lemon extract, lemon zest and juice until combined.  Set aside.  In large mixing bowl, beat butter, honey and sugar with an electric mixer for 2 minutes, until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until blended. 

With mixer on low speed, add in half the flour mixture,mixing until combined.  Add the sour cream mixture, mixing again until combined. Beat in remaining flour mixture, until just combined.

Pour into prepared cake pan.  Bake 20 to 25 minutes,  until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool. Place a wire cooling rack on top of the pan. Flip the cake and pan over and let the cake slide out onto the rack. Remove the pan, peel off the parchment paper and allow the cake to finish cooling.


Lemon-Honey Frosting 
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 c. honey
1/2 tsp. lemon extract
1 1/2 Tbsp grated lemon zest
4 c. sifted powdered sugar
7 to 8 tsp lemon juice
Few drops yellow food color


In large mixing bowl, combine butter, honey, lemon extract and lemon zest with electric mixer until creamed, about 2 minutes. On low speed, add in powdered sugar until blended. Gradually add in lemon juice.  Add  few drops food color, mixing until mixture is fluffy and pale yellow. 

Enjoy :)

Happy Birthday Truckin' Man!!!  

(Please excuse the pink birthday candles) 

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Buttermilk Lemon Tarragon Bread

I tried a new herb! I am pretty proud of myself, as silly as that is. The herb I decided to try is Tarragon. I made this my first in the herb list, because of the recipe I found.  It is for Buttermilk Lemon Tarragon Bread, over at From My Sweet Heart. Just to let you know how big a challenge this was, and how little I use fresh herbs, I wasn't sure if my store even sold this. I figured my best bet was in going to the co-op. At first I could only find parsley and cilantro, but then I found another section with herbs! And, there was even a nice little package of tarragon.  Success!

From some reading I did I tarragon, I learned that it would have a sweet anise flavor. I have not been a huge fan of anise flavored foods in the past, so I was concerned that I may not be pleased with the flavor. But, it's delicious! I sampled a bit of a leaf before baking the bread, and it passed my first inspection, so I went on with the recipe. This bread is absolutely wonderful. It is amazingly moist.  Such a range of flavors.... from the fragrant tarragon, a nice hit from the black pepper, and the wonderful bit of lemon. You must try this! 

I am excited to try tarragon in other foods now, as well as learn about other herbs!

Buttermilk Lemon Tarragon Bread  (Source From My Sweet Heart)

1 3/4 c. all purpose flour

2 t. baking powder

1 t. salt

1 t. freshly ground black pepper

1 T. sugar

1 T.  finely chopped fresh tarragon

1 T. lemon zest

4 T. unsalted butter, melted

1 c. buttermilk

1/4 c. sour cream  (I substituted Greek Yogurt)

1 large egg

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Prepare an 8 x 3 inch loaf pan with cooking spray.  Melt butter and set aside.  

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, pepper, sugar, tarragon and lemon zest.  In another bowl, whisk together the egg, sour cream and buttermilk.  Pour the melted butter and the egg mixture over the flour mixture and combine just to moisten the dry ingredients.  

Spoon dough into prepared bread pan.  Bake for about 50-55 minutes or until the top springs back lightly when touched in the center.  Place the pan on a cooling rack until just warm.  This bread will keep at room temperature, wrapped in plastic wrap for 1 week.

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Lemon Brownies

I feel like I have been getting really stuck in some food ruts lately, so I am challenging myself this month to get out of the ruts and try some new recipes and ingredients.

Another goal for this season is to start using more fresh herbs. I can grow almost any herb this season, so I want to learn how to use them and take advantage of them. More to follow on this goal and challenge for myself.

This week, in my baking, I was breaking away from the chocolate and peanut butter routine, and experimenting with a couple lemon recipes. I had a lemon cookie failure, that was probably more the fault of my oven than the baker :) Then success with lemon brownies! These are such a nice change of pace. Bright lemony flavor. Quick and easy. 

Lemon Brownies  (source Rita's Recipes)

3/4 c. flour

3/4 c. sugar

1/4 t. salt

1/2 c.butter, soft

2 eggs

juice from 1/2 lemon (about 1T)

zest from 1/2 lemon (about 1t)

Glaze

1/2 c. powdered sugar

1 T lemon juice

additional lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease 8 x8 baking pan.  Combine the flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Mix in the softened butter. In another bowl, whisk eggs with the lemon juice and zest. Add to the larger bowl and mix well.

Pour into prepared 8X8 pan. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.  

Mix together powdered sugar, lemon juice, and zest.  Pour over brownies.