It’s been a few months since my last post, 4 to be exact. Why you ask? Well, new job, new town, new life, you know the deal. In that time though, I have not stopped cooking, and strangely enough haven’t stopped taking pictures of my effort. So now, I’m back, and at what better time than holiday cookie season??
Lemon rings have been a tradition in my family for I don’t even know how long. Every December, my Dad rolls out The Lemon Rings. Crunchy, buttery cookies topped with sweet, tangy lemony glaze. As Andrew said, they are the perfect cookie, if only they weren’t topped by that gross lemony stuff. Andrew, clearly, isn’t a lemon lover. His loss. Now, I love lemon- lemon cake (I’ll have to share my very extra special delicious recipe for that one of these days), lemon meringue pie, lemon bars- I feel a little like Bubba in Forrest Gump! And that’s not even brushing the surface of savory lemon recipes. So for those of us, ahem, normal, ahem, people out there, this really are the perfect cookie.
This recipe makes PILES of cookies- maybe approximately 1000. Or 3 dozen-ish. Maybe more, we never counted. You could try cutting it in half, but I never wanted to deal with halving an egg. And I love cookies. Making these cookies is quite a process- first you make the dough in the normal Emi-style of making dough: throw everything in the mixer and turn it on. Then you have to roll the dough into little snakey ropes, about the diameter of a thin-tipped sharpie. Now, my Dad likes to add a ton of flour to keep it from sticking, which can be a problem, but I like to keep the flour to a minimum to let the butter flavor shine through. The trick here is to keep the dough chilled in the fridge, and only pull out a handful of dough at a time. The flour works too though.
Everyone in my Dad’s family has their own method to the next step in The Lemon Ring madness: glazing. The glaze is a delectable mix of lemon juice from the little squeezy thing and powdered sugar. That’s it. One Aunt likes to dunk the whole cookie in to the glaze, sealing in the crunchy goodness. Dad uses the cookie press contraption- using the smallest tip to line the cookie with a halo of lemon. I went somewhere in the middle- dipping the top in the sugary glaze. It was quicker- did I mention how many cookies this recipe makes?
Because it’s Hanukkah, and because I have many events this week that require festive cookies, I decided to add some pizzaz- sprinkles!! Completely unnecessary, completely delicious. The Lemon Ring Tradition lives on!
Lemon Rings
Makes 1000 (ish)
5 eggs
1 cup 2 tbsp white sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4 cups flour
1 cup butter
Glaze
1 box powdered suagr
lemon juice
food coloring (optional)
prinkles (optional)
Pre-heat oven to 350º
Beat wet ingredients and sugar until smooth
Add flour one cup at a time
Remove dough from bowl and place on saran wrap- wrap dough tightly and completely
Refriegerate for an hour
Take a handful-sized chunk at a time out of the fridge
roll into Thin Sharpie diameter strips and make rings
bake at 350º for 12-18 min or slightly brown
transfer to cooling racks
mix lemon juice powdered sugar- add more of either ingredient until it reaches the consistency of Elmer’s Glue
add food coloring if you wish
dip cookie into glaze until the top is covered
add sprinkles if you wish
let glaze dry and eat!
