My Recipe Reviews

Recipe Reviews, Recommendations, Tips and Musings. Thanks for visiting!

lemon glaze

Glazed Lemon Braid Cookies

by

It’s beginning to look a lot like Spring and Glazed Lemon Braid Cookies make the warmer days a little brighter!

Lemon Braids on a White Plate with Lemon Slices.

Another winner recipe from Esther Brody’s 500 Best Cookies, Bars & Squares.  This is the tenth recipe I’ve tried from this baking cookbook.

There aren’t any photos in this cookbook, but it doesn’t matter.  Whichever  recipe I choose from this book has an outstanding result.

Some of the favorites that I’ve posted previous are Cinnamon Oatmeal Biscotti, Dreamy Krispie Toffee Squares, and Lemon Blueberry Crumble Bars.

Lemon Cookies in a Blue Cup.

These amazing lemon cookies are a little chewy, but a little crunchy around the edges.

The best part?  The smooth, creamy lemon glaze!  Who knew two ingredients –  powdered sugar and lemon juice – could be so fabulous mixed together and simply brushed over a delicious little braided cookie?

Glazed Lemon Braid Cookies are easy to put together with ingredients I’m sure you have in your pantry.  Butter, sugar, flour, egg, and a fresh lemon along with powdered sugar for the glaze.

The braiding sounds fancy, looks pretty and is easy to do.  You’re only using two strands of dough and they’re gently twisted around each other.  

You’ll want to lightly flour your hands when rolling out the dough strands or they’ll be a little unruly.  Unruly = slidey all over the place.  The flour hands help a little and they’re really quickly done.

Close up of Lemon Braid Cookies

 

Refrigerate the cookies for 30 minutes, then put straight into the oven for 15 to 18 minutes until just browned around the edges.  They won’t get very browned, so don’t over bake them.

Brushing the glaze over the still-warm Lemon Braid Cookies makes this step a lot easier and less messy.  If you spoon or pour the glaze over them, you waste a lot of glaze and coverage isn’t as good.

For a final touch, I grated a little more lemon zest over the glazed cookies.  There’s also some zest in the cookie batter, but I don’t think you can ever overdo lemon flavor.  

These are delicious little lemony cookies that are great to eat for a grab-and-go snack or dunked in your afternoon hot tea.  I can’t wait to make them again.

Lemon Braids on a White Plate with Lemon Slices.

Glazed Lemon Braid Cookies

Yield: 16-18 cookies
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 18 minutes
Additional Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 8 minutes

Delicious vanilla-lemon cookies with a creamy lemon glaze.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 C butter
  • 1 C granulated sugar
  • 1 egg, room temperature
  • Zest of one medium lemon
  • Pinch of salt
  • 2 C all-purpose flour
  • For the Glaze:
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 1 1/2 C powdered sugar, sifted

Instructions

  1. In a stand mixer bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until combined and crumbly. Add the egg, lemon zest, and salt, again beating until combined.
  2. Gradually add flour, 1/2 cup at a time and mix thoroughly between additions. The dough will be soft, but kind of thick.
  3. Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper (or spray with cooking spray).
  4. Scoop out about 1/4 cup of dough and divide that into two pieces. Lightly flour your hands and on a dry counter or baking marble, roll each piece into about an 8-inch rope.
  5. Twist the two strands together, gently but as tightly as you can without smushing the braid. Cut the braid in half (about 4" pieces) and place on the prepared pan.
  6. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Refrigerate braids for about 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350° while the dough is chilling.
  7. Place one of the cookie sheets on the middle rack of your oven, and the other sheet on a rack just below the middle. Bake for 15-18 minutes, just until the edges begin browning. Swap the baking sheets onto different racks half way through baking.
  8. Immediately remove the cookies to a cooling rack. While the cookies are cooling, make the glaze.
  9. In a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and lemon juice until the glaze is creamy and smooth.
  10. Place a big piece of waxed paper under your rack to catch the glaze dripping. While the cookies are still a bit warm, brush the glaze over the cookies with a pastry brush, covering the cookies completely. Let set for about 20 minutes.
  11. Store the cookies in a tightly sealed container for up to three days.

Notes

Don't be tempted to roll the dough ropes between your palms - they'll fall apart. Just roll it gently on a counter or marble and it will go quickly.

I finished my glazed cookies with a little more lemon zest, but that's optional.

Don't over bake the cookies - they'll still be fairly blonde when they're done.

Nutrition Information:
Yield: 18 Serving Size: 1 cookie
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 144Total Fat: 6gSaturated Fat: 3gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 24mgSodium: 52mgCarbohydrates: 22gFiber: 1gSugar: 11gProtein: 2g

Nutrition Values are Approximate

© Esther Brody
Category: Cookies

Soft Blueberry Cookies with Lemony Glaze

by

Soft Blueberry Cookies

I said goodbye to peaches last week and this week I’m saying farewell to summer blueberries. Soft Blueberry Cookies with Lemony Glaze are the best send off that blueberries can get!

Costco had beautiful blueberries in stock and I bought one of those giant containers, then had to figure out what to do with them. They’re huge and sweet – maybe a little too big for these cookies, so you might want to use smaller blueberries.

Because they were such big blueberries, they burst a little when cooked and turned parts of the cookies a pretty blueberry purple. Not that that’s a bad thing.

Soft Blueberry Cookies with Lemony Glaze

These Soft Blueberry Cookies are thick, delicious sugar cookies filled with fresh, sweet-tart blueberries and topped with a smooth lemony glaze.

The combination is wonderful and it’s really very hard to stop swiping one every time I go by the kitchen. And I make a lot of trips by the kitchen.

You could use frozen blueberries in the off-season and they would work fine. I love these cookies and almost feel like I’m eating something healthy. You know, blueberries, lemon..

Blueberry Cookies

You can try using frozen blueberries with this recipe. Add them into the batter frozen, though, or you’ll have a big purple-grayish mess of a cookie. Still good, just ugly-ish.

You’ll love these little cookies. They’re a bite of Summer!

Soft Blueberry Cookies with Lemony Glaze

Soft Blueberry Cookies with Lemony Glaze

Yield: 24 - 28
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 14 minutes
Total Time: 29 minutes

Thick sugar cookies bursting with blueberries and finished off with lemony glaze. 

Ingredients

  • 1 C sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/2 C (one stick) butter, melted and cooled
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/4 C, plus 1 tbsp milk
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • pinch of salt
  • 3 1/4 C all-purpose flour
  • 2 C small/medium blueberries or 1 1/2 C large blueberries
  • For the Glaze
  • 2 1/2 C powdered sugar
  • 1 lemon zested
  • juice of the zested lemon
  • pinch of salt
  • 2 tsp milk

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°.  Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
  2. In a small bowl, whisk together sugar, egg, butter, vanilla and milk.  Set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, stir together the baking powder, baking soda, salt and 3 cups of flour until blended.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the liquid into the well.  Stir until just combined, then stir in blueberries.  It's easiest to mix in the blueberries gently with your hands so they don't burst. 
  4. If dough is sticky, add a little more of the flour until you have a fairly firm dough.  Do not over mix or the cookies will be tough.
  5. Scoop about 2 tablespoons of the dough out for each cookie, making sure there are 3 to 4 blueberries in each cookie.  Form each piece of cookie dough into a circle and slightly flatten (to about 3/4th's inch tall), then place on the prepared pan.  They won't spread much, so you can put them about 1 inch apart.
  6. Bake cookies for 12-14 minutes, until golden brown on the bottoms.  The tops will not brown!  Remove from oven and move to a cookie rack.  When the cookies are completely cooled, make the glaze.
  7. For the Glaze:  combine the powdered sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt, and whisk until creamy smooth.  Add a half-teaspoon of milk at a time if needed to get to desired consistency.
  8. Place wax paper under the cookie rack and spoon the glaze generously over each cookie, covering the entire cookie.  Let sit until glaze is set before serving.  Store cookies in an airtight container for 3-4 days.

Notes

Tips and Stuff:

The cookies won't brown in the oven - don't over bake them.

I covered each cookie completely with the glaze - just my preference.  You can drizzle it if you prefer.

Nutrition Information:
Yield: 24 Serving Size: 1 cookie
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 162Total Fat: 0gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCholesterol: 8mgSodium: 55mgCarbohydrates: 38gFiber: 1gSugar: 24gProtein: 2g

Nutrition Values are Approximate

© Shelby at GrumpysHoneyBunch
Category: Cookies

Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake (#thecakeslicebakers)

by

Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake

July’s Cake Slice Baker’s options for our challenge include this Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake from the wonderful cake cookbook The Perfect Cake by America’s Test Kitchen. I’m loving this book more and more every month!

At first I thought, oh gee another lemon cake, but after making this I’ve decided this is my favorite lemon cake ever. Really. Ever.

Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake

The instructions from The Perfect Cake are excellent each step of the way. I love the way the sugar and lemon zest are mixed together first of all, bringing out the lemon aroma and flavor to the extreme.

But wait – there’s more lemon! Fresh lemon juice and more zest (fresh only, please – no green-bottle lemon juice) are mixed in along with buttermilk, eggs (3 whole, plus 1 yolk), and butter. They recommend the eggs, buttermilk, and butter be at room temperature as it really helps the mixture come together and results in a more creamy batter.

Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake

Not enough lemon? Let’s top it off with lemon zest-sugar mixture sprinkled across the top. The result is a light, spongy lemon cake finished off with a nice lemon-buttermilk glaze and a crunchy sugar topping. Heaven for lemon lovers!

A change I made to the recipe is that I made my own buttermilk (one cup of 2% milk and one teaspoon vinegar, stir and let sit while other ingredients come to room temperature). It worked great as I don’t usually have buttermilk in the fridge. I also made an 8×8″ cake and 3 mini-loaves instead of a 13×9″ cake so I could give some of the cake to friends more easily. Besides that, this Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake works perfectly by ATK’s instructions.

If you love lemon…..here you go!

Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake

Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake

Yield: 12-15 pieces
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes

Outstanding lemony cake with a lightly sugar-crunch lemony glaze.

Ingredients

  • For the Cake:
  • 2 1/2 C (10 oz) cake flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3/4 C buttermilk, room temperature
  • 3 tbsp grated lemon zest, plus 1/4 C juice (about 3 lemons)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 3/4 C (12 1/4 oz) granulated sugar
  • 12 tbsp butter, cut into 12 pieces and softened
  • 3 large eggs plus 1 large yolk, room temperature
  • For the Glaze:
  • 3 C (12 oz) powdered sugar
  • 3 tbsp lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp buttermilk

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 325°. Spray and flour a 13x9" baking pan.
  2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, lemon juice, and vanilla.
  3. In a stand mixer bowl, beat together the sugar and lemon zest on medium speed until moist, fragrant, and fully combined, about 1 minute. Scoop out 1/4 cup of the sugar/lemon mixture and place in a small bowl; cover and set aside.
  4. Add the butter to the sugar mixture in the stand mixer bowl and beat until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs and egg yolk, one at a time, and beat until combined. Reduce speed to low and add the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the buttermilk mixture in 2 additions, and mix until smooth, about 30 seconds (don't over mix). Remove the bowl from the stand and stir by hand to make sure there's no flour on the bottom of the bowl.
  5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with the back of a spoon. Bake until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs clinging to it, 25 to 30 minutes. Rotate the pan halfway through baking. Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.
  6. For the glaze, whisk powdered sugar, lemon juice, and buttermilk in a bowl until smooth. Spread the glaze over the still-warm cake and sprinkle evenly with the reserved lemon sugar mixture. Let cool completely, at least 2 hours.

Notes

I made my own buttermilk (stir together 1 cup milk, 1 teaspoon vinegar and let sit for at least 15 minutes). It's a nice trick if you don't have buttermilk in the fridge.

It's important that ingredients are at room temperature, so don't skip that. Sometimes ingredients will look (and be) curdled if ingredients are too cold.

Nutrition Information:
Yield: 12 Serving Size: 1 square
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 238Total Fat: 14gSaturated Fat: 8gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 5gCholesterol: 93mgSodium: 338mgCarbohydrates: 24gFiber: 1gSugar: 3gProtein: 5g
© America's Test Kitchen
Category: Cakes

Lemon Glazed Scones

by

 
Winter time means great citrus fruit time.  A friend gave us some beautiful homegrown lemons and there was no way I was going to let them go bad.  They’re bright yellow with a rather thin skin and were bursting with juice.  

These Lemon Glazed Scones are just perfect to really showcase the bright, fresh flavor.


The scone is barely sweet and the amazing lemon glaze really complemented the flavor.  I had a hard time not licking the glaze bowl.  It’s tart, sweet, and lemony and the addition of the butter made it creamy and buttery, too.  What a combination!


These were divine with coffee.  It makes me want to go out and get one of those greenhouse lemon trees.  If only I had somewhere to grow them!

Lemon Glazed Scones

Lemon Glazed Scones

Yield: 8
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 35 minutes

Barely sweet scone with a creamy, tart-sweet glaze.

Ingredients

  • Scones:
  • lemon zest from one large lemon
  • 2 C all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 C evaporated milk
  • Glaze:
  • 1 C powdered sugar
  • 3 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 3 tbsp butter, melted
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  
  2. In a medium bowl, combine sugar and lemon zest.  
  3. In another medium bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, and soda. Stir flour mixture into sugar/lemon mixture until combined.
  4. Grate the butter into the flour mixture and mix quickly with your hands until it resembles coarse meal.  In a small bowl, combine the egg and milk.  Pour into the flour mixture and stir all together until thoroughly combined.
  5. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and form into a smooth ball. Shape into a 7 or 8" circle, about 3/4" thick and cut into 8 even triangles.  
  6. Place the scones onto a parchment covered baking sheet with a little room between each.  Bake for approximately 15 minutes until very lightly golden brown - don't over bake.  
  7. Allow the scones to cool on a rack.  When completely cool, whisk together the glaze ingredients and brush onto scones. Let set before storing.

Notes

I sprinkled a little turbinado sugar on each scone before baking.  I loved the crunch it gave them after baked.  

I also sprinkled a little more lemon zest on each scone after they were glazed.

Nutrition Information:
Yield: 8 Serving Size: 1 scones
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 244Total Fat: 6gSaturated Fat: 4gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 39mgSodium: 308mgCarbohydrates: 42gFiber: 1gSugar: 16gProtein: 5g

Nutrition Values are Approximate

© sblades
Category: Breads/Muffins