(upbeat ambient music) - Hey, I'm John Kanell and
today on Preppy Kitchen we're making some zingy,
delicious lemon cookies, so let's get started. First off, in a medium bowl, I'm adding two cups or 240
grams of all-purpose flour. This is the basis for one
of my all time favorite, soft, chewy, light and zingy
cookies, they're amazing. If you're watching this video, I hope you love lemon. To puff things up, I'm adding half a
teaspoon of baking powder and half a teaspoon of baking soda. The baking soda needs an acid to react to, and this lemon cookie is full
of it thanks to lemon juice. For a little bit of contrast, I'm adding half a teaspoon of salt and you can use, nice sea salt for this, and we're gonna mix this up, so everything is nice and distributed. The salt, the baking powder, the baking soda, it's all
mixed in, there we go. Time to set your dry ingredients
aside and grab a mixer. You could use a stand
mixer or a hand mixer. Into the bowl of my stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, a adding half a cup or 113 grams of unsalted, softened butter. So if you take a look, you can see it's really nice and pliable. Not hard at all. I could bend it, it's not gonna crack, but it's not falling apart soft, it's not gonna melt. Pop that in. And now we need to add the flavor in the form of three
tablespoons of lemon zest. The zest of the lemon
has all of the flavor from the lemon oil. So, use a rasp and just get
the very top layer of yellow. You don't want to have the pith and unless you're using
like, organic unwaxed lemons, you should give these a
really good wash first. So you're not putting a bunch
of wax into your cookies. Not delicious. A lot of fruits are coated
in wax so they keep beautiful while they're being
stored and don't dry out. Two more lemons to go, there's
a lot of lemon zest in this. When I was developing this recipe, I wanted just have it
packed full of lemon flavor, because it's one of my
all time favorite flavors. And I'm very disappointed
if I have something that's supposed to be lemony, but it's not completely
zingy out of this world. So, we're using a lot of the zest and we'll use some of the juice too later. And if you're wondering,
this is called a naked lemon. So you ever walk into someone's house and see naked lemons, you
know they're a serious cook because they're using all that zest. Alright, we also wanna add our sugar in. And as we mix this, all the oils and the lemon zest will get expressed almost as if we were rubbing the lemon and sugar together on our hands to make a delicious lemon sugar. Three quarters of a cup or
150 grams of granulated sugar, go right in. Just sprinkle that over. And now we're gonna mix
this on medium speed until it's light and fluffy. (blender whizzing) And like I said earlier,
you could use a stand mixer with a paddle attachment or
a big ball and a hand mixer. You're just gonna be
here for a few minutes standing over it, not a big deal. A few minutes later, my
mixture smells so good. And if you take a look, it is a light and fluffy as a lemon cloud. These should be called
lemon cloud cookies, right? I do need two tablespoons
of fresh lemon juice. So grab one of your naked
lemons, give it a slice. Oh, and lemon extract. (sniffs) Smells like vodka. (laughs) It's like absolute citron. Okay, any whozel. So now we're gonna add two
tablespoons of fresh lemon juice. Never use the bottled
stuff please. I beg of you. One that's 30 mils altogether. I'm also adding in one
teaspoon of lemon extract. This is gonna be just lemon
oil with alcohol and water. It smells great. If you don't have any lemon extract and you don't want to go to the market, you can make this cookie without it. I've made it before and it's
just slightly less lemony. It's not a big deal. You could even use a teaspoon of vanilla if you wanted that vibe. Totally acceptable. Carefully crack your egg with no shells escaping into your bowl. Mix on medium speed
(mixer whirs) until it is nice and creamy. So it's all incorporated in. And you'll definitely have
to scrape the bowl down 'cause this stuff is so liquidy and the butter was nice and thick. So I just wanna show what happens. Even though it was like the
perfect temperature, like so soft, you're gonna have
an eggy cottage cheese look. It's okay. Don't panic if that happens. Just scrape the bowl down and keep mixing. The flour will bring everything together, but I am gonna mix some more 'cause it looks crazy right now. If you wanted a super tender
fluffy cookie, even more so than this, use somebody else's recipe. Just kidding. (laughing) If you want a super tender, fluffy cookie, you can do two substitutions. Take a quarter cup of granulated sugar and replace it with brown sugar and add two tablespoons of cornstarch into your flour mixture. It'll change the gluten content,
it'll change the moisture of the sugar, and it'll just make everything even more tender. But this is chewy and delicious, as is. Mix on medium. Let's get it all incorporated. If you're wondering, who
can I thank for cookies? Why are they so delicious? You can thank Persia in
the seventh century AD. They used sugar, they made cookies and they disseminated into Europe through the conquest of Spain. So by the 14th century cookies
were all around. Thank you. Now this isn't perfect, but this looks much more like a cloudy, buttery lemon mixture,
less cottage cheesy. It's still a bit granulated,
but that's totally fine. I'm gonna sprinkle the
flour in while mixing on low and I will not mix until combined. You want to mix until it's almost combined and you still see streaks of flour because you're gonna
finish it off by hand. One of the secrets to
having a tender cookie, cake or cupcake or anything else is not
over mixing the batter. If you do that, you're
gonna activate the gluten. Low and let's just start patting this in. I got it almost all in the bowl. Little pat on the back for me. This looks crazy, very flowery, but I'm gonna stop right now and just finish it off by hand. Just gently use your spatula
to work that flour in. And today, by the way, I'm
making two batches of cookies because I have a lot of people to feed. So I thought I would
show you the difference between the cookie in its natural state and one batch with a few drops of a lemon yellow food coloring. It's gonna taste the same, but you can tell me which one
you'd prefer in the comments. Once your mixtures come
together, cover it up and we're gonna chill this
for about half an hour. Towards the end of your chill time, preheat your oven to 350. And then we're gonna get to scooping and making that amazing lemon glaze. Two batches of cookie dough chilled. It's been about 30 minutes,
so we're gonna grab a one and a half tablespoon
sized scoop, scoop it out, and you have choices now. You could just plop it
onto your baking sheet or for a more finished,
less crackled look. You look very crackled today,
huh? No, that's smooth. So roll it between your
palms, place it there and it'll bake up really nicely. We're gonna repeat that
process for as much of the cookie dough as you have. If you have extra cookie dough and you don't wanna bake it
all, just freeze the cookie dough balls on a baking sheet. And then once they're frozen,
transferred to a freezer bag and then you can bake from frozen. Hmm, I almost forgot to
show you what my batch of yellow cookies, it's gonna look like. They're yellow, so you can see there's a little bit more of a lemon hue to them. That's the only difference. So once again, totally optional, you can tell me which
one you like later on. My first batch of cookies is ready to go into the oven,
350 for about 10 minutes or until the edges are set and just taking on a little color. In the meantime, we're gonna
make a delicious lemon icing. In you go. While my cookies bake, the easiest lemon icing
is gonna come together with one cup of powdered sugar. It's about 120 grams. This
does not have to be exact. You're really eyeballing it just to get the right consistency
and flavor that you want. I also want one to three
tablespoons of fresh lemon juice. Just squeeze some in
a little bit at a time until you have a really
nice drizzling consistency. Give it a whisk. It'll look like garbage at
first, you're like, huh? But it comes together. Have faith. A little bit more lemon juice. Alright, and just like that, we have a beautiful drizzling consistency so these cookies can get completed. Once your cookies are cooled,
drizzle, or dip in icing, and they're ready to enjoy. They'll keep for up to one
week in an airtight container. As promised, I baked up my two batches. This is the yellow one.
This is the natural color. And I gotta say they're both delicious, but I prefer the natural one. It just has that beautiful
light lemon color with the zest showing through. It's a perfectly sweet lemon cloud that dissolves in your mouth with a beautiful little
extra bit of zing on top, thanks to that glaze. I hope you get a chance
to make this recipe. And if you like this
video, don't forget to hit that subscribe button and
click on my cookie playlist.
