Monday, February 14, 2011

A Sweet Valentine's Treat

This weekend, I made some Valentine’s Day cookies for a church fundraiser and to bring to work. Instead of using my mom’s sugar cookie recipe (which is always reliable), I decided to try a new recipe that I had saved from Better Homes & Gardens (February 2010 issue).

Lemon Butter Cookies
1 cup butter, softened
1 tsp. lemon zest
1 cup powdered sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
¼ tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 325. Beat butter and zest at medium speed with a heavy-duty electric stand mixer until creamy (I don’t have a stand mixer, so I just used my hand mixer). Gradually add powdered sugar, beating well.

Combine flour and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating until blended. Shape dough into a disc.


Roll dough to 1/8" thickness on a lightly surface. (Or, in my case, a heavily floured surface—I hate it when the dough sticks!) Cut with a 2 1/4" or 3 1/4" heart-shaped cutter; place 1/2" apart on parchment paper-lined baking sheets (I just used my trusty baking stone).


Bake for 12-14 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. (For some reason, mine took quite a bit longer than this.) Cool on baking sheets 5 minutes. Transfer to wire racks. Cool for 20 minutes before decorating.


And the taste test results? Delicious! I’m not usually a big fan of lemon, but the lemon flavor in these is very subtle. The texture is light, flaky, and crispy (which means it’s easy to eat a lot of them). They’re tasty just plain, but I also glazed about half of them with Sugar Cookie Icing (via AllRecipes), which dries nice and shiny and hard.



My decorating skills leave a little to be desired, but luckily that doesn’t detract from the yum factor. Plus, the recipe is super easy and uses very basic ingredients. I think it made about 30-35 small- and medium-sized cookies (which unfortunately doesn’t last long). I’d definitely make them again!

Did you bake any fun sweets for Valentine’s Day?

8 comments:

Lucky Girl said...

Yummy! I love lemon and actually made lemon cupcakes for our Valentines treat :)

Kim @ NewlyWoodwards said...

So cute! You are so on the ball. About a month ago, I thought, I'm going to make something for the gals at work.

Yeah. That never happened.

micah said...

LIKE

Marleah said...

Yum! I love that shiny icing. Do you have an oven thermometer - one that hangs from the rack inside or anything? We had things that took a long time to bake and it turned out our oven temperature was off.

Oona Johnson said...

Those look so yummy! I didn't make anything for V day, but it's probably a good thing... My dad got me a box of Chocolate Covered Strawberries and the Mr. got me Turtles - I don't need anything else tempting in the house! Lol

Lisa said...

Your cookies look so sweet and sound so tasty. I bet the recipient was pleased. I have a sweet treat linky party on my blog called "Sweets for a Saturday" and I'd like to invite you to stop by this weekend and link your cookies up. http://sweet-as-sugar-cookies.blogspot.com

Amanda @ Serenity Now said...

Those look sooooo good! I have yet to find the perfect icing recipe, so I'm gonna have to check yours out. Thanks for stopping by. :)

Meg Luby said...

love these, so lovely! glad to have found your blog!
-meg
@ http://www.clutzycooking.blogspot.com
@ http://www.myscribblednotebook.blogspot.com

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