Golden Key Lime Butter Cookies for Mom's Golden Birthday

09/09/09 is the date of my mother's birthday this year. As my Aunt Debbie recently pointed out, this is her 'golden' birthday. To celebrate I thought I might make some golden butter cookies with key lime icing and send them to her. Butter cookies are some of the easiest cookies to make~they only take 5 ingredients. The following is a set by step picture guide just because I can!

Recipe:
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 cups AP flour
1 cup corn starch
1 tsp salt

Directions:
Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl.


Sift flour, cornstarch, and salt in and use a fork to combine.
*note: using beaters here will over work your flour and make for really tough cookies.


When things are looking well and truly combined start pulling everything together with your hands. You should end up with a crumbly but well formed ball.


Refrigerate your dough for about 20 minutes so it's nice and firm and easy to roll. Then preheat your oven to 325. Roll out your dough on a lightly floured surface and cut cookies till your hearts content.


I didn't have cookie cutters (something I have since remedied) so I used a champagne glass to get nice round cookies.


While the cookies were baking I whipped together some simple lime icing.

Icing recipe:
1/2 cup powered sugar
1 tsp key lime juice
Enough water to get whatever consistency you want

I wanted my icing to be drizzlable so I made it pretty thin

Then I put a thin layer on my cookies once they were cool.


Then I mailed the cookies to my mommy! She loved them! So go do something nice for your mommy, you'll be glad you did.

Black and White Cookies

In case we didn't still have chocolate chip cookies left (we did), I decided that my CogSci class needed cookies. Julia decided they needed frosting, so I found: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Black-and-White-Cookies-106171

I altered it a bit, of course, so here's what I actually did (as Lilly looked on):

Cookies:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
  
• 1 t. baking soda
• 1 t. salt
• 2/3 c. milk + 2 t. white vinegar, let sit for 5 minutes to make buttermilk substitute
  
• 1 t. vanilla
• 2/3 cup butter, softened
• 1 c. sugar
• 2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Stir together buttermilk and vanilla in a cup.

Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add egg, beating until combined well. Alternately add dry ingredients and buttermilk, beating well after each addition. Batter will be the consistency of cake batter, NOT cookie dough.

Using a tablespoon measure (or an ice cream scoop!) spoon tablespoons (ish) of batter onto a greased* baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake until tops are puffed and pale golden, 12-15 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool while you prepare icing.

*Easy trick for greasing pans: use the wrapper from the stick of butter you just used. There's enough butter left on the wrapper to grease the pan if you just smear it around. (Thanks to Carter for passing on that trick.)


Icing:

• 1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
• 1 T. honey
• 1/2 t. orange extract
  
• 1/2 t. vanilla
• 1 to 2 T. water
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder

Stir together all but cocoa powder. Divide in half, and add cocoa to one half. Add more water, 1 t. at a time, until the two icings are the same consistency. You're going for thick syrup consistency; it should be both spreadable and drizzle-able. It took me a while to get it to that stage, so don't be afraid to play around with it-- if it gets too thin add more sugar and/or cocoa.

When the cookies are cool, it's time to play with icing! (Over parchment or waxed paper!) The recipe tells you to flip the cookies over and ice the flat sides, so I tried that once. But the cookie wouldn't sit still on its curved side, so all the icing just slid off before it was dry. I gave up and just iced the top sides. I made some that were all chocolate or all vanilla, some that were just artfully drizzled with one or both icings, and then a few half and half. Those were the hardest, because if you put the two icings touching too soon they just bleed together. I would ice each side, one chocolate and one vanilla, leaving a small gap in the middle, and then come back a few minutes later with a toothpick to encourage the semi-solid icing to cover the gap. (You can see why I didn't make very many that way, it takes forever!) The first ones I made were really ugly because my icing was too thin and it just ran off the edges and made a big puddle. (No pictures of those!)

Lilly says: Fine, make more cookies. I'm ignoring you.