Lemon Poppy Seed Sugar Cookies

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Lemon Poppy Seed Sugar Cookies

I have been a naughty baker. I wanted to bake. Really ...I did.

The other night, a friend called and asked if I had anything chocolaty in my freezer or fridge. After I said "no" an extreme wave of guilt and neglect washed over me. That's the worst feeling for an avid baker/gift giver. Unfortunately, my oven was cold and bare.

The truth is, I started speed walking/jogging with a friend. We do a minimum of 21 miles a week. This is double the miles I was accustomed to. We started this little endeavor about 5 weeks ago. I am truly enjoying the extra miles added to my week. The only downside is that it leaves little time for mindless snacking.

Therefore, I have been baking less frequently. Trust me, I have tons of recipes bookmarked/highlighted/printed ...just waiting to get made. I finally, got around to one of the said recipes.

Over the holidays, I checked out several baking books from the library. One of the books was Baking Illustrated from the editors of Cook's Illustrated. In the "cookie" section of the book was a recipe for lemon poppy seed cookies.

The cookies have the traditional soft sugar element you would expect. The twist is the light lemon essence accompanied with the poppy seeds. One thing I noticed with the first batch that went into the oven is that they spread and became misshapen. That's a big "no-no" here. I quickly fixed that by placing the cookies in the freezer for 10 minutes before baking. After that, they were perfect circles.

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