Lemon Sandwich Cookies

This Easter I made lemon sandwich cookies (my cookies shown right. Martha Stewart website picture shown left) and packaged them as Easter treats to give to friends and family. These cookies are so buttery they melt in your mouth. There's a punch of lemon in each bite.

I picked up a microplane grater and a 2" round cookie cutter at Sur La Table to zest lemons and to cut the dough into miniature circles.
These cookies are worth it but very time consuming; I wouldn't suggest this recipe to a baking novice.

A few years ago if I tried this recipe I would've struggled with rolling out the dough, given up and settled by rolling the dough into balls before baking. Not before giving the recipe a poor online rating. Knowing what I now know from my baking experiences, I knew some tricks to make the recipe work: chilling the dough to prevent sticky, fragile dough; letting the refrigerated dough slightly warm back up outside of the refrigerator before rolling it out to prevent crumbling; to ensure dough didn't stick to the rolling pin I rolled out the dough between sheets of parchment paper; picking up the cut dough circulars using a metal spatula to place on the cookie sheets; placing parchment paper on the cookie sheets to prevent sticking to the cookie sheets and overly browned bottoms; and finally taking the cookies out of the oven when they still look blonde and slightly doughy to prevent overly crispy cookies.

Parchment paper is a baker's best friend, it prevents so many potential baking mishaps! It saved this recipe. Parchment paper is not to be confused with wax paper. While wax paper looks similar and is cheaper, wax paper burns in the oven and there will be a waxy residue left on your baked goods. Spend the money on a roll of parchment, it will save your cookies and will make clean up easy!

Each batch didn't make many cookies (claims to make 3 dozen but since they are bite sized cookies, 3 dozen doesn't go a long way) so I doubled the recipe. I bought a large bag of 5-6 lemons from Trader Joe's but still needed more zest so I improvised. I made a batch of dough without lemon zest and instead of adding lemon flavor to the cream filling I added strawberry jam. A funny thing happened to the strawberry sandwich cookies, they flattened out in the oven (see two stacked cookies outside of the bag shown to the right in the picture.) They tasted heavenly but I was surprised that such a small tweak to the recipe such as excluding lemon zest could change the composition of the dough. And who said baking wasn't a science? I'd love to experiment with the dough in the future and make the strawberry sandwich cookies my own signature recipe.

Lemon Cookie Recipe can be found on Martha Stewart's website.

Makes 3 dozen

• 16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest (I used 2 lemons to get 1 T. zest)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for rolling
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, for sprinkling
• Creamy Lemon Filling
• 1 package (4 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest (I used 2 lemons to get 1 T. zest)
  
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

Creamy Lemon Filling Directions

1. In a small bowl, mix cream cheese and zest until smooth. Gradually add 1 cup confectioners' sugar, mixing until smooth. Mix in remaining sugar as necessary to create a firm but spreadable filling.

Lemon Sandwich Cookie Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl using an electric mixer on high speed, beat butter, confectioners' sugar, lemon zest, and salt until combined. With mixer on low, add flour (dough will still be stiff); finish mixing with a wooden spoon.
2. Turn dough out onto a piece of plastic wrap, pat into a disk about 1/2 inch thick. Wrap, and chill until firm, about 1 hour (and up to 3 days).
3. Unwrap dough; place on a lightly floured piece of parchment or waxed paper. With a lightly floured rolling pin, roll dough about 1/8 inch thick (if dough cracks, let it warm up slightly).
4. Cut out cookies with a 1 1/2-inch round cutter (reroll scraps once, chilling of too soft). Place 1 inch apart on two baking sheets; sprinkle with granulated sugar. Bake until barely beginning to brown, 15 to 20 minutes; transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
5. Form sandwiches: Place about 1 teaspoon Creamy Lemon Filling between two cookies, sugared sides facing out; squeeze gently.