Lemon is a favorite recipe for Spring!
Zest up your Biscotti cookies with lemon!
Lemon is one of my favorite flavors, especially in cookies. These cookies are so easy to make and store that I'm surprised people don't make them more often. They can be made with a touch of lemon flavor or with a lot of lemon flavor using a combination of lemon zest, lemon liqueur and lemon flavored sugars.
These cookies are great for dunking, eating plain and they travel great. Just toss a few into a sealable plastic bag to take along on a road trip or work conference. Because they are usually coated with hardened candy melts, there is no frosting to get messed up.
Some people are put off by the need to thrice bake Biscotti cookies. I was, too. Then, one day, I thought, I'm going for it. I found that coffee shop Biscotti cookies were very thick and sometimes downright too hard to bite into. I thought, it just can't be that difficult to make them. Not at all! It's easy. You bake the logs for a certain amount of time, slice them into your cookies, bake them on one side and then flip them to bake them on the other side. Frost and garnish. That's all there is to it!
This recipe make 20-30 cookies depending on how thin you make them.
Bake them at325F degrees in the center of the oven.
Prep your pan:
Line the baking sheet with parchment paper to keep clean up to a minimum.
Lemon Biscotti Ingredients:
2 C Flour
1 t Baking powder
1/4 t Salt
3/4 C Sugar, lemon flavored optional
1/4 C Brown sugar
2 Eggs, room temperature
1/2 Vanilla extract
1 T Limoncello liqueur or fresh lemon juice
1 T Lemon zest
Frosting:
- Melt 5-6 oz yellow candy melts in the microwave according to the directions on the package.
Make the Cookies:
- Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl and set aside.
- Whisk the sugars, eggs, vanilla extract and Limoncello and lemon zest together in a separate bowl.
- Add the liquid mixture to the dry mixture and stir until incorporated.
- Scoop batter onto a parchment paper and with damp fingers, form into 2 logs about 3" apart. The logs should be about 4" wide x 8" long.
- Bake 30 minutes at 325F degrees until golden brown.
- Cool 10 minutes.
- Slice 1/2-3/4" thick with a sharp tightly serrated knife. The number of cookies you create will depend on how thick you cut them.
- Lay them flat side down on the parchment paper.
- Bake another 8 minutes.
- Flip them over and bake another 8 minutes. Bake them a little longer if you want very crispy cookies.
- Cool on wire rack.
- Frost each cookie with the melted candies or drizzle over the cookies.
Lemon and other flavored sugars:
- Flavored sugars are very easy to make. For lemon sugar, just add a couple of teaspoons of lemon zest to a cup of white sugar and seal in a sealable plastic bag. - Let sit overnight or at least for a couple of hours so the sugar absorbs the flavor from the zest. The longer you let it sit, the stronger flavor you will develop. You can try to sift out the zest to separate it from the sugar, but it's probably too small to separate. It will be fine if you use the zest along with the sugar in your baking.
- For quicker lemon flavored sugar place the lemon zest and sugar in a food processor and pulse a few times. The pulsing will blend the oils from the lemon zest into the sugars. It's immediately ready for use in baking.
- Lavender sugar can be created in pretty much the same way.
- Place a tablespoon of pesticide free dried lavender blossoms in a sealable plastic bag with a cup of white sugar. Leave it overnight in the bag for maximum flavor. Sift out the dried lavender flowers and use the sugar.
- Rose sugar - obtain a two tablespoons of fragrant pesticide free rose petals and combine with a cup of sugar in a sealable plastic bag. Let it sit overnight, separate out the petals and use in your baking.
Options:
- Leave the cookies unfrosted.
- Replace the lemon zest with orange zest. If you don't have any orange liqueur, double the zest of an orange.
- Sprinkle with colored sugars before the frosting dries.
Serving options:
- These cookies are great along or with wine or coffee and a book. Settle down and relax with your favorite wine or flavored coffee and your current book club book.
- Share them with friends over coffee.
- Serve them as a choice with other cookies such as my Old Fashioned Cocktail Cookies or other Biscotti Cookies available on my blog.
Serve these up with coffee or pack a few for your afternoon and "Bake your own Memories!"
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