crispy lemon cookies

I stopped using ultra-refined white sugar a number of years ago. We still haven't given up sugar for other sweeteners totally, although I do use more Agave now and am learning to adjust it for certain baked goods. The sugar I do use is a natural cane sugar crystal, hasn't been bleached out or refined until all life is gone from it. Usually comes from a Florida Crystals package, which is where this recipe comes from. **NOTE** This is not advertising, just a fact of what I have on hand.

I have had the empty packaging of a sugar bag tucked between my flour canisters for a couple of months now because I have wanted to try the recipe on the back. The time to make these never seemed to be right...working on other recipes, requests for certain things, holidays, procrastination, etc. Today seems like it might work out, though.

These are delicious warm from the cookie sheet without any icing, and they are delicious with the icing, which just ups the lemon flavor. The next time I make these (and I definitely will do again), I will make the dough logs smaller, more like 1 inch dia. instead of 2. The cookie spreads as it bakes, and even though it is nice to have large cookies, smaller ones are easier to pack and share out...if you go for that sort of thing and don't go all blue and furry when the cookies come out!

For those who are raw cookie dough tasters (and isn't that all of us??), there are no eggs in this recipe, which means taste away, just make sure to save enough to bake!!!

crispy lemon cookies

cookie dough

• 1 cup butter, room temp
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour (unbleached!)
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp lemon extract (*see note in directions below)

lemon icing

• 1 cup powdered sugar (aka confectioners')
• 1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
• grated zest of 1/2 lemon (zest lemon before juicing!)

350* F

Cream the butter, then add sugar and cream until smooth, light & fluffy. Add flour, sour cream, baking soda & lemon extract and blend until smooth, but don't over beat. Divide dough in half, place each half on wax paper and roll into a 2-inch log, then freeze until firm. *I didn't have lemon extract so I used zest from 1/2 a lemon, and the juice of 1/2 a lemon, which, I feel, actually gives them a brighter flavor.

Remove 1 log at a time, slice dough into 1/8 inch slices. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake until edges are golden, 14 to 16 minuets, remove, cool 1 minute then remove from sheet to rack. Drizzle with icing if desired. **The cookies will spread as they bake so give a little room between unless you don't mind them touching. Also, it is important to remove them from the sheet at the 1 minute mark as they crisp as they cool and become crumbly and hard to remove. A nice sharp metal spatula helps with this.

For icing: mix all ingredients until smooth. Drizzle over cookies. Let icing dry before storing in airtight container.