Family Favorites...Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies

 I bought a large bag of lemons at Costco, they are always good quality, large, and much cheaper than I can buy locally. Then of course I had to use them up. This was the time to try some new recipes as I did not want to juice and freeze all of them.

 One of our favorites were these Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies from Martha Stewart. I find her recipes work well for us. I did however, not read this one carefully enough so didn’t follow it exactly. The changes I made, worked out so well that this is the way I will make these again. I am going to post the recipe with the changes and if you would like to see the original check on line with Martha for the cookie recipe.

 So here is the recipe the way I made it. Really good if you like a crisp cookie.

Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies

Yield: about 3 dozen

¼ cup fresh lemon juice

3 teaspoons grated lemon peel

8 ounces butter (2 sticks divided)

2 ¼ cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups sugar 

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 tablespoon poppy seeds plus more for sprinkling

 DIRECTIONS:

 Preheat oven to 375°. Bring lemon juice to a simmer in small saucepan over medium heat; cook until reduced to ⅛ cup of juice. Add one stick of the butter and stir until melted. Set aside to cool.

 Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. 

 Cream together the remaining stick of butter and sugar with electric mixer. Mix in egg and lemon butter, Beat until pale about 3 minutes. Mix in vanilla and lemon peel. Mix in flour mixture and poppy seeds.

 Chill dough for a few minutes. Roll 1 ½ inch balls of dough (I use a cookie scoop). Place on baking sheets, flatten balls to a ¼ inch thick with the flat end of a glass dipped in about ¼ cup of sugar and ½ teaspoon lemon peel. 

 Bake just until browned around the bottom edges 9 to 10 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Store in airtight container.