Amended Lemon Cornmeal Cookies

A few years ago, my roommate Chris gave me a beautiful little cookbook called 'Luscious Lemon Desserts' by Lori Longbotham. It is a gorgeous book, with wonderful photography and lots of amazing looking desserts. The other day, I was looking through it for recipes that I could make with things that I already had in my kitchen, when her Lemon-Black Pepper Cornmeal Cookies caught my eye. Well, truth be told, it caught my eye because I was a little taken aback at the combination, and read a bit more. She goes on to promise that you don't really pick up on the black pepper flavor, but feel a nice warmth from it instead, but if you wanted, you could substitue ground ginger instead of the pepper. I was sold.

The dough was simple to make, but be warned, it is very soft and sticky, so much so that I though I might have not added all the flour or cornmeal I was supposed to! Another problem I had was that I chilled the dough for too long and tried to cut slices right after I took the dough out of the fridge, which resulted in the dough crumbling. I would say the perfect consistency for cutting the dough is when it slightly gives to a medium firm press of your finger, with it softer around the edges than in the middle. The good thing about the dough, even if it's too firm or too soft, is that it's very forgiving, and when it thaws a bit, it's easily molded into the shape you need. My dough, when formed into the wax paper logs, was not perfectly round, due to the softness of it when first made, so after I sliced the dough, it was easy to shape any edges into a perfect circle with my fingertips. The cookies bake up perfect and crisp in the stated time and are beautiful! I would have liked to taste a bit more of the ginger, so instead of the recommended 1/2 teaspoon of ginger, I might add 1 teaspoon next time, or omit the ginger in the cookie dough and roll the slightly thawed logs in crushed crystallized ginger, to make a border of ginger surrounding the crunchy lemon cookie. Even without the modifications, they are delicious and addicting, rich and crunchy and sure to be a hit! Enjoy!

Lemon-Ginger Cornmeal Cookies

For the Cookies:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
Pinch of salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup finely grated lemon zest
2 large egg yolks

To Make the Cookies:

Whisk the flour, cornmeal, ginger, and salt together in a medium bowl and set aside. Beat the butter, sugar, and zest in another medium bowl with an electric mixer, beginning on low speed and increasing to medium-high speed, until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks and beat to combine well. Reduce the speed to low, add the flour mixture, and beat on low speed just until blended.

Press the dough together with your hands and divide it in half. Place each half on a sheet of wax paper and form each piece into a 10-by-1 1/4-inch log. Smooth each log with dampened fingers. Chill the logs, wrapped in wax paper, for at least 3 hours, or until firm.

At least 25 minutes before baking, position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F. Butter 2 large nonstick baking sheets or line with parchment or silicone liners.

Cut each log into 1/4-inch-thick rounds and arrange the rounds 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake, 1 sheet at a time, for 10 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies are golden brown. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and let cool.