Wonderful lemony goodness

By JENN POWELL

And just like that the month of March is just about over! I am ready for spring and spring baking! 

This recipe for lemon tea cookies is perfection; be sure to save it for later.

Lemon tea cookie

Ingredients:

1/2 cup softened butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 medium-sized egg

1 teaspoon lemon zest

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Optional: yellow food coloring to enhance color

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit: grease cookie sheets or line with wax paper.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla, egg, lemon zest and lemon juice. Scrape sides and mix again.

In separate bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Slowly add to wet ingredients and mix, scraping the sides occasionally.

Add food coloring if desired.

Pour powdered sugar into bowl. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar to coat. Place on the baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.

Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown. 

Remove from oven and cool cookies for several minutes before moving to cooling rack.

These cookies are the perfect recipe to make this spring. They also pack up perfectly if you are headed out to the park, lake or camping. These cookies will ship perfectly if you need to send cookies to a loved one.

Here are a few tips for batches:

One way to handle a lot of baking is to bake in batches, then freeze and store for the day of your event.  You can do this successfully over a couple of weeks with batch-preparing and batch-baking.

The biggest thing to remember is to only try a few different types of things in one day, or focus on just one type of baked good in one day. For example, you might want to bake all your quick breads in one day. On another day, you can prepare all your cookie dough. Yet another time, you can bake all your fruit pies. 

This process makes the most of the time you have, the space you have and your skill level.

If you have a local business that you would like to have spotlighted in an upcoming column, get in touch! Email jenn@jennpowelldesigns.com with any news, events and happenings.