More Birthday Baking!

It's taken me a little while tyo get around to posting the second installment of my friend's birthday cookies but belive me they are well worth the wait! These were probably one of the first recipes I found on my favourite foodblog  The Crepes of Wrath, I loved the sound of them then but lemon biscuits has never been highest on my agenda to bake (I'm all about the chocolate) plus the recipe called for lemon extract which I didn't own and didn't know where to buy. So I put them to the back of my mind and the back of my recipe book and sort of forgot about them for a few months. Then when it came to my baking extravaganza for my friends Birthday I knew I wanted two chocolate based recipes, the oatmeal cookies from my last post and the rocky road cookies that will be my next post, but I needed something a bit different. That's when I remembered these lemon sugar cookies, they seemed pretty simple to make (aside from the lemon extract) and i thought they would make a nice different kind of biscuit to two the heavy chocolatey ones I'd already decided on.

Lemon Sugar Cookies

My version of these cookies turned out slightly different to Sydney's, I halved the recipe so the possibly sent my measurements out a little bit because they were softer than they should have been. Also didn't have any granulated suger so roled them in caster sugar which didn't work as well because it kind of melted into the cookie. I explained before my lack of lemon extract. I searched for it high and low but to no avail! i know it exists in the uk, I'm I've seen it, or at least "lemon flavouring" which I'm guessing is the same but I couldn't find it this time round. So I resorted to using lemon juice, I knew this wouldn't be as strong in flavour as lemon extract, so I used more but I didn't realised just how much more I'd need to use. If you can't find lemon extract use the juice of a whole lemon, trust me, even if you feel you're going overboard you probably aren't! Otherwise these worked really well. They looked a lot like Millies Cookies, I flattened mine with a fork befor baking which is why they are so thin and huge. Leave them as balls on the baking sheet if you want slightly thicker smaller cookies beause the dough will flatten itself when it's baked. As for the taste, well for me the lemon flavour was only slight, but using more lemon would fix that, even so it didn't amke them any less enjoyable. They were slightly vanilla flavoured to, soft, chewy and very creamy. My friends gobbled the lot so that's got to be a seal of approval right?

Ingredients
11oz flour
1stp baking soda
1/2tsp baking powder
8oz butter
12oz sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp lemon extract (or juice of a whole lemon if you cant find this)
Zest of one lemon
Sugar for rolling cookies

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180c and grease and line a baking sheet
2. Stir together flour, baking powder and soda and salt and set aside
3. Rub together sugar and lemon zet untilo it is a pale yellow colour. Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Mix in egg, vanilla and lemon extract
5. Gradually blend in dry ingredients and mix until just moistened
6. Roll rounded tablespoons of dough into balls and roll in the granulated sugar. Place on a lined baking tray and bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly golden and set.
7. Leave to cool and store in an airtight container.
8. Enjoy!!