KosherEye.com
This cookie was founded on a notable buttery lemony Italian classic that I made for years. What’s in a name? In this case everything.
These handsome glazed lemony cookies won’t disappoint. This simple recipe can be dashed off at a moment’s notice.
They taste of sunshine, lemony with a tahini apostrophe. For more lemony wallop, I add diced glazed lemon peel as an option in the dough.
The cookies are either painted or dunked into a lemon icing.
The glazed cookies sit pretty on a tray, waiting to be noticed.
Everyone will want another! And another…
Yield: 30-35 cookies
Dough Ingredients
½ cup sugar
1 large lemon, grated and juiced
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons “creamy” tahini, well stirred
4 oz. extra virgin olive oil
2 large eggs, checked and beaten
½ teaspoon salt
optional
1 well-rounded tablespoon “diced” candied lemon peel
Lemon Glaze Ingredients
2½ cups confectioner sugar
3-3½ tablespoons freshly squeezed, strained lemon juice
1 teaspoon almond milk
optional garnish
“diced” candied lemon peel
Method
Preheat oven (convection if available) to 350 °F.
Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.
Choose a mixing bowl large enough to accommodate the dough’s ingredients.
Prime the ingredients.
Combine the grated lemon and sugar inside a standing blender.
Cover and grind for 15 seconds. Stop. Use a fork to loosen and stir the ingredients at the very bottom.
Repeat grinding for another 15 seconds and set aside.
Sift the flour and baking powder over the mixing bowl.
Scape in all the blended lemon and sugar.
Scrape in the measured tahini. Pour in the olive oil. Add in the beaten eggs and salt.
Use a rubber spatula (or hands) to mix the ingredients together, forming a shiny, homogenous dough.
Finishing
Pinch off 1½” pieces of dough. Shape into balls. Place the balls 1” apart on the baking sheet(s).
Bake for 20 minutes. The cookies will have cracks and some color. Cool to room temperature.
Prepare glaze: in a bowl, combine all the confectioner sugar and three tablespoons of lemon juice. Stir.
Add in the almond milk a little at a time. The icing should dry opaque on the cookie. Add more sugar and lemon as needed.
On the counter, line up the cookies on a piece of parchment paper.
Use a pastry brush to generously paint each cookie with the lemon glaze.
No pastry brush? Just hand-dip the tops of the cookies into the glaze.
Optionally, top each cookie with a piece of diced candied lemon peel while the glaze is still wet.
Let the glaze harden.
Note: this raw cookie dough is best used when made.
Cookies can be prebaked without glazing, cooled and frozen.
Bring back to room temperature then place in a preheated 350 °F oven for 6 minutes. Cool then glaze. Glazed cookies will keep for a week when stored inside a sealed container.
Lauren Stacy Berdy earned her professional diploma from Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne, Paris, France in 1978, then spent a few years working in Europe before bringing it home. She spent more than three decades as a private chef-caterer.
Lauren resides 130 paces from the beach with her husband in Hollywood, Florida, where she wrote Remaining Kosher Volume One: A Cookbook For All With A Hechsher In Their Heart. This iBook is available on iTunes. Volume Two is well on its way.