Senior editor Karen Kaplan devised these delicious lemon sugar cookies. They're cut into Hanukkah shapes-menorahs, dreidels and Hebrew letters-and decorated with blue and white icing. Wrap them in tins, decorated shoe boxes, hatboxes or pretty bags. They make nice hostess gifts for couples with young children.
Recipe information
Yield
Makes about 6 dozen
Ingredients
Cookies
Icing
Preparation
For cookies:
Step 1
Using electric mixer, cream butter and sugar in large bowl until light. Beat in egg, lemon juice, lemon peel and vanilla. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in small bowl. Add to butter mixture and stir until well combined. Divide dough into 3 pieces. Flatten each into disk. Wrap each in plastic and chill 2 hours or overnight.
Step 2
Preheat oven to 350°F. Roll out 1 dough piece on lightly floured surface to thickness of 1/8 inch. Using Hanukkah cookie cutters dipped into flour, cut out cookies. Transfer to ungreased cookie sheets, spacing evenly. Gather scraps, reroll and cut out additional cookies, chilling dough if necessary. Bake until cookie edges are golden, about 10 minutes. Transfer cookies to racks and cool. Repeat rolling, cutting and baking with remaining dough pieces in batches.
For icing
Step 3
Place sugar in bowl. Stir in 2 tablespoons milk and lemon juice. Add more milk if icing is too thick to pipe. Transfer half of icing to another bowl. Mix food coloring into half of icing.
Step 4
Spoon plain and colored icings into separate pastry bags fitted with small round tips or into parchment cones. Pipe icings decoratively onto cookies. Let stand until icing sets, about 2 hours. (Can be made 1 week ahead. Store cookies in single layers in airtight containers.)
