grandma's double citrus butter cookies
These cookies were favorites of my Grandma Celeste. She was the mother of 8 children who she raised on her farm in Iowa. She loved anything with citrus and I inherited that love from her. We'd sit and enjoy these cookies anytime I could take them up there when I visited her. The flecks of vanilla bean in the cookies make them feel even more special. I entered these cookies in the Iowa State Fair competitions and they won first place. It is fitting, my Grandma, Mom, sister and I used to camp there when we were younger.
Blue Ribbon Recipe
I just love the mix of citrus flavors in this recipe. Between the zest in the sugar and the zest/juice in the icing, every bite of these had a wonderful flavor. I did have to add a total of 6 tsp of juice to get my icing to a drizzling consistency. Blue Ribbon worthy indeed!
Ingredients For grandma's double citrus butter cookies
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1lemon zest, grated
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1orange zest
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3/4 csugar
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2 1/2 call purpose flour
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1/2 tspsalt
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1 tspbaking soda
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1 cunsalted butter, room temperature
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1/4 cpowdered sugar
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1egg, lighly beaten
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2 tspvanilla bean paste
- ICING
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2 cpowdered sugar
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1 tspvanilla bean paste
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reserved zest and juice of citrus
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1 pinchsalt
How To Make grandma's double citrus butter cookies
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1In a small bowl, zest Lemon and Orange together, reserving 2 tsp juice and 1 tsp zest of each for icing. Set aside. Rub the remaining portion of zests into granulated sugar to ‘perfume’ the sugars with the oils of the zests. Set aside.
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2Combine flour, salt and soda in a separate bowl.
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3In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, on medium high speed, beat butter until creamy, 1 minute. Add zest/sugar mixture and powdered sugar, beat 2 minutes until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, mix on medium speed until combined. Add flour slowly while mixer is on low. Mix only until combined. Remove dough from bowl and place in plastic wrap in the refrigerator for 4 hours.
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4Preheat oven to 350 F. In a small bowl, combine reserved zests and juice of citrus with powdered sugar, vanilla bean paste. Whisk well. Set aside to drizzle on cooled cookies.
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5Shape dough into 1.5″ balls. Coat in granulated sugar or turbinado sugar. Place on silicone lined or parchment lined baking sheet with enough room to spread and not touch. Pat to 1” thickness. Bake for 9 minutes. Remove from oven, cool a few minutes on sheet pan and then place cookies carefully onto a cooling rack. Cool completely. Mix icing ingredients together well. Drizzle cooled cookies with icing.
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