I think we should all sit down and have tea and cookies today. Tea and cookies and a little chat and laughter in the late afternoon sun. What do you think? Are you in?
In the past few days, my inbox has filled with emails from people with big, arms-up-in-the-air, life questions. If you’ll allow me to paraphrase, they go something like this:
Dear Joy,
This might sound totally weird and crazy, but I think I’m going to get laid off from my job soon, and I’ve always wanted to be a baker and I was wondering if you could tell me… what the heck to do next.
Sincerely yours,
Ok… first things first… let’s hug it out. That will help. Next, you should know, as I’m sure you already do, that I don’t have all the answers. Not even close. I am a firm believer in the idea that if you go after what you love, in a balls-out, take-no-prisoners kind of way, you succeed. Succeed? Heck yes! Because you’ll be ultra happy that you’re, in the very least, doing something you love.
So! If you want to be a baker… do it! Bake every day! Bake and bring cookies into the office job that might not be your favorite place in the world. Bake and try to sell to the coffee shop down the street. Bake and give it to the local homeless shelter. Bake and blog about it. Read books about baking. Talk to bakers about baking. Take a cheap cooking class at the community college. Ask to apprentice one (very early) morning at a local bakery. Dive in. It’s what I did, and if I can scratch out a living in the kitchen every month, I think you can too. On the real.
This concludes today’s installment of My Two Cents.
Now… how about cookies?
These Lemon Cloud cookies just about melt in your mouth. They’re simple and delicate with a slight bite and romantic texture. You can either flavor them with lemon or orange. I think they’re just heavenly served with a warm cup of tea.
Lemon Cloud Tea Cookies
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cornstarch
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
8 Tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon lemon or orange extract
1 teaspoons finely grated lemon or orange zest
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Combine the flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
Combine the butter and confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat on low speed with the paddle until well mixed. Increase the speed to medium and continue beating until light, about 2 minutes.
Beat in the eggs one at a time. Batter may look broken and curdled. Beat in the extracts and zest.
Decrease the speed to low and beat in the flour. Remove the bowl from the mixer and give the dough a few good turns with your spatula to bring it all together.
Arrange rounded teaspoons of the dough on a pan lined with parchment paper. Space the balls about 2-inches apart. After all the cookies have been placed on the pan, flour a fork and press a crisscross design into the top of each mound of dough. Bake the cookies until they spread and become golden, about 20 minutes. Slide the parchment paper off the pan to cool completely.
Makes 48 tiny cookies.
Keep the cookies between sheets of wax paper in a plastic container with a tight lid.
{ 65 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
Just finished making these and even though I didn’t have any lemons for the zest they were still delicious. I can’t wait to make them again with it, since I think they’re missing that fresh lemony zing that I really love.
And I whipped up some peach iced tea to sip with them, and they’re so good together! ^_^ Thanks so much for sharing this little piece of YUM :D
I’ve had to take a break from reading any of the blogs that I loved lately, including yours as I was working full-time and looking for another job every available moment.
When I was finally fired, it was actually a relief, and now I can get back into the extra internet reading that I’ve been missing. Thanks for such a brilliant blog entry and receipe Joy, I think I’ll make the orange version and take them to a Tony awards party this weekend!
I loved these cookies! Thank you so much for posting them. I made the lemon version, but I am going to try the orange version next time. I cannot wait to enjoy my tea and these cookies on my deck this weekend.
You can use fresh Lemon Orange or Lime juice instead of extracts. I do it often but I find you need to add a little extra as to the actual juice is not as strong as the extract.
@Beth – This is exactly what I did, except that I reduced about 1/2 cup of lemon juice down to one tablespoon. It worked perfectly and the texture was great!
Check out my pictures: http://www.thedishsdish.com/blog/2009/06/lemon-cream-cookie-extravaganza/
Just finished baking the cookies ! A piece of heaven, absolutely wonderful! thanks a million for the recipe!
I have posted a picture on my flickr page, if you’d care to see…
it was so fun to make these! Now I’ve got to try those carrot-cake pancakes…
I just made these this week! They are just divine! Thank you for all of your beautiful photos and delicious recipes!
Fantastic recipe, not too sweet, beautiful pictures. I added black pepper and cardamom, tasty.
Making these ASAP!
Second batch in the oven now… chomping on the first batch… they’re sooo nice!!!
thanks for this, joy!!
These cookies are absolutely duh-licious! I consider myself an amateur baker, for I only do it when I actually have the time, but this recipe really inspired me to do more! As a lover of French cuisine (or French anything!) these had that je ne sais quoi that other lemon cookie recipes were missing! Thanks! ;3
Hi Joy!
I just made your Lemon Cookies… they were delicious! I had to tweak the recipe a bit to make it work for what I had. I did not have any lemon extract (and didn’t want to buy a whole bottle of it) so I boiled a 1/4 of a cup of lemon juice down to a tablespoon. (Similar to what another reader mentioned). This left my dough a little sticky, so I added a few more tablespoons of flour. I used salted butter rather than unsalted, but left out the 1/8tsp of salt. I had to use aluminum foil too, because I am too cheap to buy parchment paper. It worked fine! I made my first and second sheets of cookies small like yours. My last sheet I got lazy and made them regular sized cookies. These ones turned out softer and more cake-like/melt in your mouth! Next time I do this, I will make them all regular sized just because I like the soft texture more :) As soon as I took my cookies out of the oven I rolled them in powdered sugar to make them more “cloud-like”.
Thank you again for the recipe. I am new to your site/blog, and I absolutely love it! Your recipes, writing style, and passion is so inspiring!
Dear Joy,
Do you think that adding some dried lavender to it will destroy the taste?
I’m in a dilemma to what I should bake with both lemon and lavender, so I thought I could perhaps get your opinion in this!
These cookies are on my top ten list. When I last baked them, I decided I’d add pistachios (about 1/2 cup chopped). This worked so well, I wanted to share. Thanks for the recipe!
← Previous Comments
{ 7 trackbacks }