Lemon Lime Crinkle Cookies

Yesterday was a busy day here in our world, our son got a new wheelchair.  It is going to take some getting used to, but I think it will last longer than his old one.  Now on to the dessert.  I was in the mood for something sweet but not really chocolate, so I found this recipe on .  It is a great place to find new ideas.  But be careful, once you start it can get a little addicting.  The recipe is  Lemon Crinkle Cookies by Laura Brennan.  I thought it looked like an easy recipe that wouldn't take very long to put together.  But I had a problem, no lemons.  So I decided to improvise and use some limes that I had left over from another project (homemade Cherry Limeade like Sonic's).  The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of lemon zest.  I hate zesting.  I have tried everything to get the necessary amount of zest for different recipes and it seems like I would have to zest an entire basket of fruit just to get 1 teaspoon. I even got a fancy zester for Christmas and that didn't help.  So I have to preface this recipe with the fact that I did not use the called for amount of zest.  Oh well I think they still came out pretty good.

Here are the ingredients:

½ cups Butter, softened

1 C. Sugar

1 t. Vanilla Extract

1 Egg

2 T. Lime Zest

½  T. Fresh Lime Juice

½  T. Lemon Juice

¼ t. Salt

¼ t. Baking Powder

⅛ t. Baking Soda

1 ½ C. Flour

½ C. Powdered Sugar

I modified the original recipe by using lime zest instead of lemon and half lime juice instead of all lemon.  I would have used all lime to make them Lime Crinkle Cookies, but when I squeezed the limes they didn't have enough juice.  So I added enough lemon juice to make up 1 tablespoon as called for in the original.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease light colored baking sheets with non stick cooking spray and set aside. (I like to use parchment paper instead of greased cookie sheets)

In a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla, egg, zest and juice. Scrape sides and mix again. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly. Pour powdered sugar into a medium bowl. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet and press lightly to flatten slightly and repeat with remaining dough.

Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte {not melty or shiny}. I found 10 minutes was perfect. Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Makes between 2 and 3 dozen cookies depending on the size.

The cookies will be soft when you take them out of the oven.  Once they cool they will firm up.  Now for the taste.  I thought they turned out really good.  Not too sweet or too tangy.  There was a nice hint of lime and the lemon wasn't too overpowering.  The recipe only makes a small batch so I made smaller cookies so that there would be more.  Plus if the cookies are small I don't feel too bad when I eat a lot of them.  This is certainly a recipe I will make again.  The flavor was fresh and sweet.