When Life Gives You Lemons...

To offset the oh-so-dreary weather that has descended upon us this Winter day, here is a little group of sunny, delicious things I found to brighten up your day and get you in the kitchen. :-)

Lemon Meringue Fudge

Lemoncello Cupcakes

And what I'm making right now :-)....

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

{ Note - 1/29 : These turned out to be amazing!  Definitely a keeper recipe!}

Due to the fact that we didn't have lemons in the house - along with the fact that there are quite a few people in our family who are not too hip on lemon zest - I changed up the recipe a tad bit. 

For those of you who do like zest though, just substitute the 1/2 teaspoon of lemon extract for 1 teaspoon of lemon zest: 

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Makes 2-3 dozen

Ingredients:
½ cups butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 whole egg
1 teaspon lemon extract
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
¼ teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoons baking powder
⅛ teaspoons baking soda
1-½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cups powdered sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease light colored baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon extract, 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 onto a large plate. Roll a heaping tablespoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough. Smoosh each of the cookies with your hand until they are almost completely flattened.

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

*If using a non-stick darker baking tray, reduce baking time by about 2 minutes.

Happy Monday!