Meyer Lemon Cookies and Lemonade!

I love it when produce is in season and you can walk in to the grocery store and know exactly what you want to buy.  It's citrus time and the fruit is at its best and cheapest! I went into our Central Market (H-E-B) and picked up some Minneola Tangelos and some White-fleshed Grapefruit (the sweetest and juiciest grapefruit you'll ever taste) and gobbled them right up.  

We have a few trees in our backyard that gave us a strong showing of Meyer lemons this year! I never heard of Meyer lemons until I started reading blogs right after KD was born in 2008.  There were two recipes that stood out as Must-Tries: This Iced Meyer Lemon Cookie from Buff Chickpea and Meyer Lemon Blueberry Yogurt cake (a version of Ina Garten's famous Yogurt Cake) from Smitten Kitchen.  I have been hooked ever since.  Since our trees are being fruitful (heehee), I couldn't wait to get back to this recipe. Click below for recipes!

Meyer Lemons can be pricey and I have made this using only 2-3 lemons and it still tastes amazing.

Iced Meyer Lemon Cookies

Modified from BuffChickpea

Print Recipe

2 1/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 ½ Tbsp finely grated Meyer lemon zest (3 lemons)

Icing

4 Tbsp Meyer lemon juice

1 Tbsp finely grated Meyer lemon zest (2 lemons)

1 ½ cup powdered sugar

Mix butter on high speed until fluffy. Then add the sugar and egg. Continue mixing on medium speed adding vanilla extract and 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon zest.

In a separate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Mixing on low speed, slowly add the flour mixture to the creamed butter mixture until blended, scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally. Gather dough into a ball, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 hour. If it is in there longer, just let it sit on the counter for 10 minutes.

While the dough is being chilled, juice the lemons that you had removed the zest from earlier. Add the remaining lemon zest to the powdered sugar, then slowly add the lemon juice till its still nice and thick but no lumps are visible.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees at some point before the dough is done chilling.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator, and using a mini ice-cream scoop, scoop the dough balls onto a cookie sheet. Flatten the cookies with a glass, coating the bottom of the glass with spray oil and sugar (I’ve also mixed in ground up almonds with the sugar which is awesome!) between flattening. The flatter the cookie, the crispier they will be.

Bake for 10-12 minutes until the edges are golden brown. If you want really crispy cookies, don't pull them out of the oven until the edges are really nice and brown. Remove from the oven and transfer to racks to cool completely.

Generously ice the cookies

Ice your cookies!  Let them dry completely before stacking.

He just can't keep his paws off!

And, with all that leftover juice, make . . .

Strawberry Meyer Lemonade

Print Recipe

1 cup fresh squeezed Meyer Lemon juice

1 cup sugar

1 cup boiling water (zap it in the microwave for 1-2 minutes)

4 cups water

2 cups of ice

2 cups strawberries, clean and cut

Meyer lemons are not as strong or tart as regular lemons so leave wiggle room to adjust at the end.  You don't want super sweet, watered down lemonade and no more lemons!!

Put the strawberries and 1/4 or so of the sugar in the bottom of a pitcher.  Toss and let macerate. Meanwhile, heat the cup of water and stir in the sugar with a whisk till dissolved.  Put some of the ice into the simple syrup to cool it off.

If you have a hand blender, pour the lemon juice into the strawberries and blend it up.  If not, just mash the strawberries and sugar with a wooden spoon or potato masher then add the juice, water, half of simple syrup, and ice.

Stir and taste. Adjust taste to your liking, adding more syrup or water.  The boys loved it and so did I (with a little rum!).

~Kim