LEMON - POPPY SEED COOKIES

Lemon-poppy seed cookies!!!

I can't resist lemons.  I love lemon everything.  Add lemon juice to soup, add lemon rind to desserts.  Heavenly flavor.  Case in point:  I made this wonderful, luscious cookie recipe that I discovered on Martha Stewart’s web site (originally published in Martha Stewart Living, August 2004).  These cookies are highly recommended! Lemony, crunchy, just the right amount of sweetness, one of the best cookies I've tasted.  No exaggeration!  Lemon butter gives these guys an extra special taste.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 3 1/2 teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest (2 to 3 lemons)
• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon poppy seeds, plus more for sprinkling

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375° F.
• Make lemon butter: bring the lemon juice to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat; cook until reduced by half. Add 1 stick butter and stir until melted.
• Shift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
• Cream the remaining stick of butter with 1 cup of sugar on medium speed in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
• Add the one egg and the lemon butter. Mix until pale, about 3 minutes.
• Add the vanilla and 2 teaspoons of the lemon zest, and mix.
• Add the flour mixture and the poppy seeds and mix, to finish making the cookie dough.
• Make a sugar mixture by stirring together the remaining 1/2 cup sugar and the rest of the lemon zest.
• Roll spoonfuls of cookie dough into 1 1/2-inch balls; roll them in the sugar mixture.  (This step will add a lot of sweetness to the cookies, so you might want to give them just a light coating of sugar mixture. Unless you love the sweet stuff. At any rate, you should have some sugar mixture left when you are finished).

Spray the pan,  flatten the cookie balls with the bottom of a glass.

• Place the dough 2 inches apart on baking sheets sprayed with cooking spray. Press each piece of dough with the flat end of a glass dipped in the sugar mixture until they are all 1/4 inch thick. Sprinkle the cookies with poppy seeds.
• Bake until just browned around bottom edges, 10 to 11 minutes. Transfer to wire racks; let cool completely. Store in an airtight container up to 1 week.
• Makes about 30 cookies. (Mine came out to 37, could have easily made 40).

Loved them, loved them, loved them!!!

 Irresistible!