lemon Archives | Heavenly Homemakers

I’ve long since stopped rolling and cutting when I make those cookies. After all – if life is too short to knead bread dough, it’s certainly too short to get out a rolling pin and cookie cutters. (Although I will be rolling and cutting for the holidays because there are laws enforcing the making of cookies into the shape of trees and stars and candy canes at Christmastime.) Instead of rolling and cutting in the non-holiday season though, I’ve been either freezing and slicing or simply dropping and squooshing (as detailed below).

Every time during the past few weeks I’ve made the drop and squoosh sugar cookies, Malachi walks by and says, “Man, I always think these are some kind of lemon cookies. Mom, you should make these into lemon cookies.”

Either my kids are related to me, or they just naturally get inspired with, “great recipe. now let’s tweak it.” Some of my best recipe ideas come from the brains of my boys. Need I remind you of the Pineapple Fluff Salad? Or the 5-Minute Stove-Top Granola? Now, allow me to introduce you to {Low Sugar} Lemon Melt-Away Cookies.

I simply added 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice to my Easy {Low Sugar} Cookies recipe and voila: {Low Sugar} Lemon Melt-Away Cookies. If we loved the regular version, we love the lemon version even more. I used the drop and squoosh technique, which is the method all the professionals use. To squoosh is a real thing. I definitely did not make up the term five minutes ago. All the famous chefs squoosh. Squooshing is a well-known culinary term just like saute, dredge, and braise. (Though it might be used more often by cooks who say “slap it down into a pan,” “toss in a little of that,” and “throw it down on the table.” Still. Professional.)

Simply put, to squoosh is to press down lightly on a ball of cookie dough with the bottom of a drinking glass. Dip the glass into a small amount of sugar if necessary to keep it from sticking. Drop a scoopful of dough, squoosh it down with the bottom of a glass. Drop, squoosh, drop, squoosh. Or, to be more efficient: drop, drop, drop, drop, drop (x24) – squoosh, squoosh, squoosh, squoosh (and so on).

It looks something like this:

It must please you so much to be taught these professional terms so that you can impress everyone around you as you cook and bake. “What are you doing?” a friend will ask. “Oh, I’m just squooshing my cookies,” you’ll reply. Then your friend will nod in quiet appreciation at both your skill and your knowledge. They will also enjoy eating your cookies.

Now I shall give you the Low Sugar Lemon Melt-Away Cookie recipe that will have you squooshing in no time.

{Low Sugar} Lemon Melt-Away Cookies

Save Print

Author: Laura

Serves: 24-30

Ingredients

1 cup melted butter
½ cup sucanat or raw sugar
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups of whole wheat pastry flour (give or take)

Instructions

Stir together melted butter and sugar.
Add lemon juice, eggs, vanilla, and baking powder.
Stir in flour until a solid ball of dough forms.
Drop teaspoon-sized balls of dough onto a cookie sheet, about an inch apart.
Squoosh the dough down gently with the bottom of a glass.
Bake in a 350° oven for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.

It’s time to start squooshing, friends. Is this a skill you’ve already mastered, or is this one a new one for you? Let the squooshing begin.

healthy_celebrations_med

Yum

Please join me in welcoming Holly, who is guest posting today to share her awesome Double Lemon Cupcake recipe with us! I can’t wait to give these a try!
—————————————————–

Hello Heavenly Homemakers readers! My name is Holly. I am a Christian, a military wife and momma to an 18 month old son, and I am really excited to be sharing a recipe (or three) with you. The past year I have been learning about traditional foods; I have reinvented how I shop, cook, eat, and feel about food. The most recent milestone in this journey was birthday cake. Remember when Laura asked us to choose between chocolate and vanilla? Well, to celebrate my 24th birthday I chose option C.

I wanted a birthday dessert that satisfied my emotional desire for cake, but also fulfilled my sensible need to eat wholesomely. I knew that if I did not satisfy both halves I would be left either feeling like a whole wheat martyr or a big sugar-filled failure. Yuck. Blessedly, I found a happy medium with these sweet and tangy cupcakes.

lemon_cupcakes_6

Let me just say that I am normally very relaxed baker, I never sift. I fudge the temperatures and can be lazy with the mixing. But for this recipe, if I say sift I do mean sift. The same goes for temperatures and times. It may seem fussy for some of you, but the results are rewarding.

Double Lemon Cupcakes

3 c whole wheat flour
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp sea salt
1 c butter, room temperature
1 c orange blossom honey
4 large eggs, room temperature
the zest of 3 lemons (I recommend organic because you are consuming the peel), plus 2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 c buttermilk

Preheat oven to 325° F. Butter and flour the inside of two round cake pans or two dozen muffin tins. Zest the lemons (just the yellow part, try to avoid the white pith because it is bitter), you want this to be very fine. Sift the dry ingredients together and set aside. Add the lemon juice to the buttermilk.

Cream the butter and the honey until they are nice and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, until well mixed in. Add the zest and vanilla. Add the flour and buttermilk in three parts. Beat until just combined. Pour the batter into the prepped pans and bake until golden brown and they pass the toothpick test, 30-35 minutes for a cake, 25 minutes for cupcakes.

lemon_cupcakes_2

While the cakes are baking, mix up a nice batch of…

Lemon Curd

8 large egg yolks
Finely grated zest of 2 lemons
½ c plus 2 tbsp lemon juice (about 3-4 lemons)
½ c orange blossom honey
teeny pinch of salt, about 1/8 tsp
¾ c unsalted butter (10 tbsp or 1 ¼ sticks) cold, cut in pieces

Wisk together all ingredients except butter and salt in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. When the mixture registers 160° F on an instant-read thermometer and is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon, remove from heat. This should take about 8-10 minutes. If you don’t have a thermometer, just do what I did and use good quality eggs.

Remove pan from heat and add salt and butter, one piece at a time, stirring until smooth after each addition. Strain through a sieve. It is normal for small bits of cooked egg to strain out, don’t worry you did it right. :) Cover this with plastic wrap and let it cool in the fridge at least one hour.

lemon_cupcakes_3

Fill your cupcakes with lemon curd. You can use a pastry bag and large tip, or poke a hole with the wrong end of a wooden spoon and use a plastic baggie with a corner snipped off. Spread extra curd on top of the cupcake. If you’re making a cake, spread the lemon curd between the two layers. Then whip up your frosting.

Soft and Fluffy Frosting

8 egg whites
¾ c orange blossom honey
1 tsp vanilla extract.

Combine egg whites and honey in a large heat-proof mixing bowl (or the bowl for your stand mixer if you have one and it’s heat-proof) set over a pan of simmering water. Wisk rapidly for two minutes Make sure your water does not boil! You will end up with scrambled egg frosting and it will be gross. Cook this until it reaches 160° F on an instant-read thermometer (or if like me you don’t have one, use good eggs and cook for two minutes). Remove from the heat and beat on your mixer’s highest speed for until soft and fluffy, about 7-9 minutes. Beat in the vanilla. Use this frosting immediately.

lemon_cupcakes_4

I used (some of the) leftover curd to decorate the tops of some of the cupcakes. Or you could eat it with a spoon and not tell anyone there were leftovers. I won’t look.

lemon_cupcakes

Thanks Laura for letting me share my recipes with you and your readers!

Holly wanted me to be sure to let you know that the curd will keep in the fridge about 3 days, but it is best served in the first 24-36 hours, and the frosting should be used immediately after it’s made, because it will start to deflate after a few hours. It’s still edible for several days, but the quality goes down after 6-8 hours.
——————————————————-

This post is linked to Works for me Wednesday.