Snickerdoodles
were one of my children’s favorite cookies growing up. The soft eggy cookie
dusted in cinnamon sugar was a real treat for the mouth and a nice departure
from the standard chocolate chip that often filled our cookie jar. Eight years
ago Brilliant Daughter and I came up with our own riff on the classic
snickerdoodle, developing a chaidoodle
that incorporated typical chai spices. Looking back I realized that chaidoodles
were one of the early posts in the first year I began this blog (2006). Eight years later, combing through my
mountains of saved recipes, I came across this recipe for lemondoodles, which I
believe came from Melissa
and No. 2 Pencil blog. And
because we are notorious lemon lovers and I still have Meyer lemons on the
tree, it made perfect sense to test it out.
Start
to finish, these cookies took about an hour, with ingredients that are found in
a typical pantry and refrigerator. The only tricky part is browning the butter,
but as long as you stand over the stove and watch and stir carefully, it only
takes a few minutes. That means you can’t answer the phone, change a diaper, or
run outside to turn off the sprinklers. It is wise to be patient and appreciate
that solid butter turning into a golden nutty liquid. Other than that, it is a
simple recipe that mixes up easily in either a stand mixer or your everyday handheld
mixer.
I’ve
made a few adjustments to the recipe. First, in the topping, I chose to use a microplane
instead of a zester.
A microplane allows for small, delicate curls of lemon peel, which I felt would
integrate better with the sugar, infuse more flavor into the topping, and would
react better when baking. A zester would create long strands that would
either require straining before using or would not attach well to the cookie
and possibly burn or turn bitter in the baking process. And because I was using
Meyer lemons, which have considerably more flavor in the peel than your
standard Eureka lemon, I only needed to use the zest from 2 lemons, rather than
3.
I also
tried to different baking times and temperatures. The original recipe called
for 7 minutes at 425 degrees, but my other “doodle” recipes call for 10 minutes
at 400 degrees. I found that there is not a huge difference, but the 7
minute/425 degrees version was a bit lighter in color and softer on the
outside. The insides of both were similar. So make your life easier and go with
the 7 minute version.
I
should point out that these are large cookies and spread out, so do not crowd
on your baking pan. I cooked only 8 to a pan, which was perfect. It takes a bit
longer, but with 2 pans in the oven at a time, you only need to do the process
twice.
Pair
these with a nice cup of oolong, English Breakfast, or Earl Gray and enjoy
yourself!
