Megan asked me to make something sweet with rosemary, so I decided to bake a lemon-rosemary shortbread. And, in case the lemon-rosemary shortbread didn't taste good, I baked snickerdoodles too.
To be honest, I'm not a big fan of fancy-shmancy cookies. I appreciate weird savory-sweet combinations, but sometimes people overdo it. And, where I go to school, there are way too many people who seek out weird combinations for the sake of seeming more sophisticated. To that, I say "No thanks."
So, I was genuinely surprised when these shortbread cookies came out so nicely. The original recipe only calls for rosemary, but I decided to add some lemon because I wanted the cookies to be sweet rather than savory (Megan did, after all, request a SWEET baked good with rosemary). Initially, I was afraid that the addition of lemon juice, a liquid, would make the dough too wet, but since the original recipe was so dry, the dough ended up becoming easier to handle. The dough alone really isn't very sweet, so I sprinkled the dough with some coffee sugar.
You can definitely taste the rosemary in these cookies, but they're good! They cookie is buttery and savory, but the sugar crystals melts in your mouth, providing a kick of sweetness. I suppose you can add more sugar in the dough if you want a more even distribution of sweetness, but I prefer the crystals. The cookies are like scones, but smaller.
Lemon-Rosemary Shortbread
adapted from epicurious.com (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Rosemary-Shortbread-10998#ixzz1UvzieB00)
3/4 stick butter
1 tablespoon honey
1/8 cup white sugar
juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 cup AP flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon chopped, dried rosemary
Pinch of turbinado sugar
1. Preheat oven to 350˚F and grease a cookie sheet.
2. In a bowl, beat butter with sugar and honey until light and fluffy. Add lemon juice and beat.
3. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, chopped dried rosemary, and lemon zest. Mix in flour mixture into butter mixture until just combined.
4. Pour batter onto metal pan and pat down evenly into a circle shape. Score dough into 8 wedges with a knife. Sprinkle cookies with sugar.
5. Bake shortbread in middle of oven 15 minutes, or until pale golden. Let stand in pan for 10 minutes. While shortbread is still warm, loosen edges from pan with knife and cut shortbread apart. Cool on rack.
These snickerdoodles are standard. Nothing fancy, nothing special, but very good nonetheless. A warning: the dough is barely wet, so don't worry if the dough seems too dry. When you roll the dough into balls, the butter melts and the flour comes together. I changed the oven temperature because half of my cookies burned on the bottom.
My cookies didn't come out as flat as the ones at the Smitten Kitchen, but that resulted in a doughy center. These cookies are barely sweet and completely delicious. They're super easy to bake, too.
Snickerdoodles
adapted from the Smitten Kitchen
dough:
1 cup + 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons AP flour
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter
1/2 cup + 1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
cinnamon-sugar:
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1. Preheat oven to 375˚F, with one rack in top third and one rack in bottom third of oven. Grease baking sheets; set aside.
2. Whisk together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt; set aside. Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat to combine. Mix flour mixture into butter mixture until just combined.
3. Make cinnamon-sugar: Combine 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon cinnamon.
4. Measure out a tablespoon of dough, roll into a ball, and roll in cinnamon sugar. Place about 2in. apart on prepared baking sheets. Bake until cookies are set in center and begin to crack, about 10 minutes, rotating the baking sheets after 5 minutes. Transfer the sheets to a wire rack to cool about 5 min. before transferring the cookies to the rack.
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