Candied Meyer Lemon Cookies

I’m excited to announce that as of this month, I’ll be a contributor to Food Fanatic. If you haven’t checked out Food Fanatic yet, it’s a food and recipe website featuring some of the best food bloggers around.

Each blogger is a “fanatic” about something, and the recipes they contribute each month focus on that item or type of cooking. Who’s surprised that I’m now the resident lemon fanatic?

This means that once a month, I’ll be sharing a lemony lovely on Food Fanatic, and also sharing it here, too. I figured I would dive right in with an EPIC lemon recipe.

These Candied Meyer Lemon Cookies highlight my favorite type of citrus. Meyer lemons are thought to be a cross between a regular lemon and an orange. They are slightly smaller than standard lemons, and have a sweeter, less tart taste.

While some grocery stores now carry them all year ‘round, I prefer to use them when they’re most in season (January through April).

For this recipe, I started with my family’s favorite sour cream sugar cookie recipe, but got rid of the holiday-ish nutmeg in the dough and added ground ginger instead. I also whipped up a simple cream cheese frosting, but the true star of the show is the candied Meyer lemon.

Candying citrus is actually a very simple process. The trickiest part is getting the seeds out of each slice of lemon, but even that isn’t too bad. It’s kind of fun.

After your lemon slices are de-seeded and ready to go, you give them a very quick cook in boiling water to soften them up a touch. Then you dump a bunch of sugar and water in a skillet, throw in your lemon slices, and let them simmer for an hour.

It’s tempting to go binge-watch something on Netflix like I did, but you DO need to check on the lemons every 10 minutes or so, to make sure they’re not simmering too rapidly and that the sugar syrup isn’t getting brown. Because then you’ll end up with caramelized lemons, which are delicious, but not really what we’re going for here.

While each component here (cookies, frosting and candied lemons) can be made in advance, these cookies are best eaten the day they are frosted and decorated.

Like my heart cookies, I think this Candied Meyer Lemon Cookies recipe would be perfect for a spring bridal or baby shower, or just to give yourself a little treat to beat the mid-winter blues. Enjoy!

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Candied Meyer Lemon Cookies

Yield: 36 cookies

Prep Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Cook Time: 8 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 38 minutes

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Ingredients

For the Cookies:

• 1 stick Unsalted Butter, Room temperature
• 3/4 cup Granulated Sugar
• 1/2 cup Sour Cream
• 1 Egg
• 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1/2 teaspoon Ground Ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
• 1 3/4 cups All-Purpose Flour

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 8 ounces Cream Cheese, Room temperature
• 1 stick Unsalted Butter, Room temperature
• 2 cups Powdered Sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract

For the Candied Meyer Lemons:

• 6 Meyer Lemons, Cut into 1/4 inch thick slices, seeds removed (36 slices)
• 4 cups Granulated Sugar
• 4 cups Water

Instructions

1. For the Cookies: In mixing bowl, beat butter, sugar, sour cream, egg and baking soda at medium speed until well combined.
2. Mix in ginger and vanilla.
3. Gradually beat in flour.
4. Cover and chill at least 1 hour, or overnight for best results.
5. Preheat oven to 375°F. In batches, roll chunks of dough to about 1/8-inch thickness (use well-floured surface and floured rolling pin).
6. Cut dough using 3-inch round cookie cutters.
7. Bake cookies 8 minutes or until they just begin to brown around the edges.
8. Carefully transfer to cooling rack and let cool completely before frosting.
9. For the Cream Cheese Frosting: Place cream cheese and butter in mixing bowl and mix on medium-high speed until light and fluffy.
10. Reduce mixer to low; gradually mix in powdered sugar, scraping sides of bowl occasionally.
11. Add vanilla; beat until well combined.
12. For the Candied Meyer Lemons:Heat large pot of water to boiling.
13. Fill large bowl with ice and water.
14. In batches, add lemon slices to boiling water and cook 1 minute.
15. Transfer lemon slices to ice water and let cool 2 minutes; drain.
16. Place 2 large skillets over medium heat.
17. Add 2 cups sugar and 2 cups water to each skillet; heat until sugar is dissolved, stirring occasionally.
18. Reduce heat to medium-low; divide lemon slices between skillets.
19. Simmer 1 hour or until rinds are translucent, stirring and turning lemons occasionally.
20. Check every 10 minutes to be sure sugar solution isn’t browning (reduce heat if necessary).
21. Transfer lemon slices to wire rack set over rimmed baking pan; cool completely.
22. To serve: Spread each cookie with about 1 tablespoon frosting and top with 1 candied lemon slice.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 36 Serving Size: 1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 224Total Fat: 8gSaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 27mgSodium: 43mgCarbohydrates: 38gFiber: 0gSugar: 33gProtein: 1g

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