- 5 cups King Arthur's unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 cups unsalted butter, cool room temperature (15 minutes out of the refrigerator)
2 cups superfine sugar
1/2 teaspoon lemon oil (or 1 teaspoon extract)
1/2 teaspoon orange oil (or 1 teaspoon extract)
finely grated zest of 1 large lemon
finely grated zest of 1 large lime
2 large eggs, lightly beaten, at cool room temperature
Decoration
sanding sugar or sprinkles
-or- Royal Icing or Buttercream Icing
1. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, cloves, and salt. Whisk thoroughly to distribute the baking powder. Reserve.
2. Using a stand mixer, such as a KitchenAid Artisan 5-qt. Stand Mixer , fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugar, vanilla extract, lemon oil, lime oil, lemon zest, and lime zest until light and creamy, about 3 minutes,.
3. Add the eggs, a little at a time, and continue beating until very light and fluffy, scraping the sides of the bowl several times, about 3 minutes.
4. Add the flour mixture and mix very briefly in short bursts, just until incorporated
5. Divide the dough into 5 equal portions and flatten each portion to a 1/2-inch thick disk on a sheet of plastic wrap. Seal the plastic wrap around each portion of the dough and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight. (The sealed dough can be refrigerated for 2-3 days if necessary.)
6. On a lightly floured pastry cloth, using a covered rolling pin, roll out the dough to 3/16- to 1/4-inch thickness. Use a little flour to keep the dough from sticking if necessary, but try not to work too much additional flour into the dough.
7. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters and place cookies on a lightly greased baking sheet. If desired, sprinkle with sanding sugar or sprinkles.
8. Bake at 375 for 7-10 minutes, until edges are just beginning to lightly brown.
9. Using a thin, flexible offset spatula, remove cookies from the baking sheet and cool on a wire rack.
10. After cooling, cookies can be decorated with icing if desired.
Store cookies, layered with rounds of wax paper, in airtight metal cookie containers. (These cookies keep well for weeks in a cool, dry place; they may also be frozen.)
Makes about 8 dozen small to medium cookies.
Royal Icing
1 teaspoon at a time; a little usually does it
1/4 cup powdered egg whites (or meringue powder)
1/4 cup water
4 cups (1 pound) powdered sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon orange oil (or 1/2 teaspoon orange extract)
1. Using a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, combine the powdered egg whites and water, and beat slowly for a few minutes to dissolve the powder.
2. Increase mixer speed to medium and continue mixing until the mixture is frothy.
3. Add the powdered sugar, cup by cup, and mix until incorporated.
4. Add the vanilla and orange extracts.
5. Increase mixer speed to medium-high, and mix until the icing is thick and glossy, about 5 minutes.
6. Remove the icing to a plastic storage container. Put a damp paper towel directly on top of the icing to keep a crust from forming.
7. If not using within a couple of hours, cover the bowl with plastic and refrigerate.
8. When ready to ice your cookies, thin the icing to the desired consistency using 1 teaspoon of water at a time. You may also want to divide the icing between several small bowl and add a different color food coloring to each.
Makes 1 cup icing.
Come Back for More
Here is the LunaCafe Christmas 2008 Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies initial post and game plan with links to the following twelve cookies.
On the 1 st day of Christmas: Lily's Swedish Vanilla Spritz
On the 2 nd day of Christmas: Orange Vanilla Sugar Cookies
On the 3 rd day of Christmas: Decidedly Lemon Teacakes
On the 4 th day of Christmas: Once in a Chocolate-Spice Moon Cookies
On the 5 th day of Christmas: Peppermint Stick Shortbread
On the 6 th day of Christmas: Lemon-Lime Clove Sugar Cookies
On the 7 th day of Christmas: Almond Black Cherry Shortbread
On the 8 th day of Christmas: Green Tea and Rose Spritz
On the 9 th day of Christmas: Almond Butter Poinsettia Cookies
On the 10 th day of Christmas: Lemon Orange Pecan Thumbprints
On the 11 th day of Christmas: Candy Cane Butter Cookies
On the 12 th day of Christmas: Ellen's Swedish Pepparkakor …
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Tags: butter cookies , Christmas , Christmas cookies , cookies , holiday , holiday cookies , SMS Bradley , twelve days of Christmas cookies
This entry was posted
5th,
2008 at
35 pm and is filed under Desserts , Recipes .
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Friday, December 5, 2008 By Susan S. Bradley
One Response to "Lemon-Lime Clove Sugar Cookies"
