When life gives you lemons...

Put them in your bra... it can't hurt, and it might help. Or, you could just make these fabulous lemonade cookies.


This is (one of) my current favorite cookbooks: I love her approach to food, I love the fact that she is the only female iron chef, and I love the conversational style of her cookbook. I do love me a conversational cookbook. And, most important, I love every recipe I've tried out of it so far. A lot of the general food knowledge in it has been very helpful as well. Anyway, I really love anything lemon, and when I saw this recipe, it intrigued me....

Excuse me a moment while I quote "The Office"...
Michael Scott: Holly is sweet, and simple. Like a lady baker. I would not be surprised to find out that she had worked in a bakery before coming here. She has that kind of warmth. [thinking] I'm pretty sure she's baked on a professional level. Season 4, Goodbye Toby

I am not a baker. Too many rules. I don't like rules. In fact, in my working-outside-the-home past, saying "I never bake" would not have been much of an exageration. I prefer cooking, usually. Even now, this is kind of stepping outside my comfort zone to share a baking recipe on my blog. But, as I've worked myself into this stay-at-home-mom role, I've discovered a few things about baking...

1: My family loves it when I bake.

2: Baking opens up a whole world of new challenges, tastes and techniques.

3: It's most of all fun to share stuff you bake.

4: It's the fastest way to make yourself--or your husband, when he takes your stuff to work--friends. (That's like a side benefit, not a goal, just to be clear.)

So, since I got our cookie jar, I've done my best to keep it full of cookies. And, I tell ya what I've discovered, Man cannot live by chocolate chip alone. It's true! I would never have believed it myself, but it is actually, sadly, quite true. So, I've been baking/trying new cookie recipes as I can.

Frank likes them all, so that's a relief. But, Kiki HATES oatmeal raisin, even if she is STARVING, she will not eat them. Debris loves outmeal raisin, but HATES lemon. They all love snickerdoodles. They all love chocolate chip. Debris especially LOVES anything ginger. So you see, I have to rotate the cookie recipes so as to not bore anyone, and also to fulfill the requests of those whose hated kind is the one that I previously made. Fortunately, I like baking cookies.

This one might be my new favorite, and it's a perfect, light, and lovely summertime cookie:

Lemonade Cookies (Cat Cora)

*=my additions

1 can frozen lemonade concentrate
2 sticks butter (she says unsalted, I can't be bothered to buy 2 kinds, so I always use salted. Works for me.)
1 cup sugar, plus a little extra for sprinkling
2 teaspoons lemon zest
*juice of one lemon-measured
2 large eggs
2 1/2 cups flour (*plus additional 1/8-1/4 cup if adding juice of one lemon-measure the juice, and add equal amount of flour)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt (*I usually just just do a small pinch, since I use salted butter)

Preheat oven to 375F.

Thaw lemonade.

Cream together butter and sugar. Add lemon zest. Add eggs, beating well. Mix together 4 or 5 minutes, until light and creamy.

In separate bowl, mix together the flour, the baking soda, and the salt.

Measure out a 1/2 cup of the lemonade mixture. Alternate adding in the flour mix and the lemonade concentrate, as well as the lemon juice. Beat together on a low speed just until all the ingredients are combined.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls approx 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet.

Bake cookies between 8 and 11 minutes... my oven takes 9 to make them soft and delicate the way I like them, but if you like yours closer to crunchy you might let them go a little longer.

Take them out of the oven, use a pastry brush to brush the leftover lemon concentrate over them, and sprinkle with sugar.

Allow them to cool completely. Try not to eat all the dough while you wait for the first batch to bake. Try not to eat 10 of them while you wait for them to cool. Not that I've ever done that. Ever. Nope, not me!

They are pretty delicate.. you have to wait several hours until they hold up well enough to survive rough cookie jar conditions. They might be best kept on a plate, if you prefer your cookies to not crumble. But their light, delicate nature is one of the things that is so charmingly delicious about them.

And, I've found that they are much more light if you do add the ingredients in the order listed, with the alternating of the lemonade/lemon juice and the flour mixture. The first time I sort of didn't notice that bit of info, and added the lemon stuff, and then the flour, and they were a little tougher than the following times I made them.

Enjoy!