A Bitten Word Recipe
When he was growing up, Clay's great-grandmother Annie made wonderful sugar cookies. Different from your run-of-the-mill cookie, Annie's were crisp and extremely thin. Those cookies always seemed to be around in Annie's kitchen, little discs of sugary comfort just waiting for you.
Wanting to make cookies recently for a friend's birthday, we dug up Annie's recipe to give it go. Her secret to a thin cookie? Using a spatula to flatten them in the final moments of baking. Pretty nifty.
We were excited to make Annie's sugar cookies, but we also want to add our own spin: a lemony twist on her classic recipe.
These cookies come together very quickly. Since these are drop cookies and are not meant to be rolled out, there's no need to chill the dough prior to baking. Of course, if you prefer to roll and cut out your cookies, you can chill the dough in the refrigerator prior to rolling and baking.
We loved the final result of these cookies! Light and sweet, with a lovely little zing from the lemon zest. The bottoms were nicely browned and the cookies were perfectly chewy. These cookies didn't have the crispness of Annie's cookies, but we were still pleased with the final result.
And one note on ingredients: Annie used vegetable shortening in her cookies in lieu of butter, so these cookies don't have the buttery flavor of many sugar cookies. But we thought that actually made them better -- they were citrusy and light, without being loaded down with such a buttery richness.
Annie made these cookies well into her 90's. So really, who are we to argue?
It's a darn good cookie.
The Bitten Word's Lemony Sugar Cookies
Yields 25 to 30 cookies.
2 eggs
2 cups sugar, plus additional sugar for sprinkling
1/2 cup buttermilk
2/3 cup vegetable shortening
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoon lemon zest (from 1 lemon)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, buttermilk, shortening and vanilla extract until smooth. Fold in baking soda, flour and salt. Add zest.
Line baking sheets with parchment. Drop 1 tablespoon size portions of cookie dough onto the sheet, with at least 2 inches between each round of dough. Bake for 15 minutes.
If you prefer a thinner cookie, in the final 2 minutes of baking, use a spatula to flatten each cookie.
Sprinkle cookies with a light dusting of sugar and allow them to cook on racks.
