Friday Baking - Cookie # 7

How did you celebrate the Super Moon or last Sunday's Moon Day?  Did you make moon cookies, too?

Kinda cute, aren't they?  Little lemon crescent moons with a lemon icing glaze and some sparkly glitter?

Or perhaps you are more of a "Dark Side of the Moon" kind of person?

These happen to be some leftover ginger cookies that were still quite soft, so I cut them into moon shapes and then dipped in chocolate, but a chocolate cookie would work just as well if not perhaps better since the ginger got a bit overpowered by the chocolate glaze.

Or maybe, just maybe, you are a Moon Pie sort of person....I didn't take these into work, but they were rather a tasty indulgence, using the oval moon leftovers from the gingerbread cookies that I spread with Nutella and marshmallows...

...that I toasted under the broiler...

...and then sandwiched together.  If you like oozing, squishy marshmallow, you just might like these.  Is it just me that wants to take a finger and lick up those oozing sides?

And cause a Moon Pie is covered in chocolate, well, then when in Rome and all that...

Those 5 puppies were pretty much eaten by G (breakfast of champs and all that), but I did get a bite or 2 or 3 or 7...

So how did you celebrate Moon Day?  I also celebrated Moon Day by being on vacation.  But the BEST-est thing that we did to celebrate Moon Day on July 20 was to see our very own A-man get baptized by his Daddy, R.  It doesn't get much sweeter than this!

But back to those Lemon Moon cookies.  I was remembering the Lemon Moon Cookies that the Mothers and Daughters had at Maggiano's last December, and these aren't quite the same, but they are very close if I had rolled them just a bit thicker.  This recipe is one that uses almost as much corn starch as flour, so that also intrigued me about it.  These are based on this Martha Stewart Lemon Pistachio Wreath cookie recipe, but I left off the pistachios.  Oh, and I made a mistake in the making of the recipe, but more on that later.

1 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1 cup flour
3/4 cup + 1 T. cornstarch
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup + 1 T. sugar (aka 9 T. sugar)
2 egg yolks
5 t. lemon zest
Splash of vanilla and lemon extract
Few drops of lemon oil
2 T. of lemon juice for powdered sugar glaze

I measured the dry ingredients onto a sheet of waxed paper.  Can you see the cornstarch off to the top right of the pile?  I'd never used that much cornstarch EVER in anything, so I was intrigued about this recipe!  I am pretty sure that the cornstarch is a major reason for how tender and soft these cookies turned out to be.

Mixing the rest of the dough together was pretty standard - creaming the butter and sugar until light and fluffy and then adding the yolks, zest and flavorings.  This is where I messed up and the reason I wrote the list of ingredients above the way that I did.  Martha has the lemon juice listed along side of the zest, so I tossed in the 2 T. of lemon juice with the zest into the cookie dough rather than reserving it for the glaze!  Duh!  But oh, well, I was committed at that point, so I kept moving forward with adding the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined and chilling.  And this is what we had.  It seemed like it would work!

I don't have a moon-shaped cookie cutter, so I improvised using this set.

I LOVE this set of cutters and use them quite often in baking.  I chose two circles that I thought would make a good crescent moon shape.

I rolled the dough out (I'd go a bit thicker next time plus add some yellow food coloring to make them a bit more lemon looking, but this worked just fine as is.)

I cut a circle with the larger cutter.

And then a portion of that away with the smaller cutter.  And viola!  We have a moon!

Or rather we have LOTS of moons!  (Plus a few ovals because I got a bit tired of re-rolling those ovals.  I justified it saying that I needed a few for internal "Quality Taste Testing" before taking to my Real Taste Testers!)

These baked at 350 for about 12 minutes until just barely golden.

I made my standard powdered sugar glaze but used lemon juice as well as milk until the glaze would just cover the cookie without dripping too badly. And gave a little moon sparkle with a light dust of edible glitter!

I let these dry overnight and then arranged on a platter with the Dark Side of the Moons as well. These were light and lemony and would be perfect with some fresh summer strawberries or a spot of tea!  I liked how they turned out, so I would explore more recipes that use a large percentage of cornstarch.

Happy Moon Day!  Thanks for stopping by!  I am still in vacation mode, so I play to post a few pics from our visit with the kids and grandkids soon!