On Saturday evening, I made my temple cookies ....
(my kids decorated them with sprinkles)
Instead of baking regular sugar cookies, I decided to use a recipe that I have for Lemon Sables. My parents had to remove the lemon tree from their front yard last week, so I was in the mood for something with some lemons. I doubled my recipe and made enough cookies for my mom's birthday party that we had last night. I think everyone really enjoyed the lemon-ness in the cookies. If you'd like to try my recipe, here it is:
Lemon Sables
(makes about 15 large cookies)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and salt.
2. In a large bowl (like your Kitchen-Aid Mixer bowl), beat the butter with an electric mixer until creamy. Add the confectioners' sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then beat in the vanilla & lemon zest. On low speed, gradually beat in the flour mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 20 minutes to firm slightly.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
4. At this point I cheated & just put flour on the counter & my rolling pin to roll out my dough (I was supposed to roll the dough out between 2 sheets of waxed paper, refrigerate again, etc, etc, etc ... too much work!) Roll the dough out to about 1/4-inch thickness and use your favorite cookie-cutters to make whatever fun shapes you'd like to have.
5. Place your cut-out cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake the cookies for 13-15 minutes, until very lightly golden around the edges. Cool for about 1 minute on the baking sheets, then trasfer the cookies to wire racks to cool completely.
Now you want to make your cookies pretty. If you want to be quick & easy, prepare an egg wash which you'll brush on the cookies before baking .... if going this route, you'll also put your sprinkles on the cookies before you bake them. I might also add more lemon zest to the cookie dough.
I decided I wanted MORE lemon goodness on my cookies, so I made a lemon glaze:
Lemon Glaze
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 cup confectioners' sugar
About 1 Tablespoon cream or milk
1. In a small bowl, using a wooden spoon, beat the lemon juice into the confectioners' sugar. Beat in just enough cream to make a smooth, spreadable glaze. Spread the glaze over the top of the cooled cookies. Let them sit for about 30 minutes, or until the glaze sets completely. If you want to add sprinkles like I did, you'll have to add them immediately after you spread the glaze because if the glaze sets and then you try to add the sprinkles, the sprinkles will just fall off the cookie. Hope that makes sense! :)
As you can see from my photos, I placed the cookies into clear little bags. There wasn't enough room at the top of the bag for a bow, so I found some temple stickers (leftovers from my wedding announcements!) & just closed the bags with those.
My mom also serves in the Young Women program, so she had some left-over handouts that she gave to me for my Laurels ... the Laurels went NuTs over them! She attached ring pops to this hand-out:
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