Put a lid on it

I recently had a spate of activity in which I did a lot of those stupid jobs which you know you need to do, and you know will take up a negligible amount of your time but somehow you never actually, well, do. Apologies for the amount of italics in that last sentence…I often think in italics, which I don’t think is a normal thing to do. It’s not, is it? Hmm.

But anyway, I was on a roll. I deleted a load of duplicate songs off my iPod which was both satisfying and disturbing as in the process discovered that I have a disproportionate amount of Elton John on there. I know, Elton John. I was as confused and upset as you, not least because his songs outnumbered ones by Pink Floyd fairly comfortably. In addition to being brutally confronted with my questionable taste in music, I also registered with the local doctor’s surgery (despite having lived in this area for over 6 months) and cleared out a lot of old magazines from my room. I was definitely on a roll, and, spurred on by this burst of productivity, I decided to do something else which I’d been meaning to get round to- baking something to take into work.

I’d been mulling over taking some kind of baked good in for a while, but had always stopped short due to the fact that my office has a culture of certain people bringing in baking and as an intern I didn’t want to step on anyone’se toes by bouncing in in my second week with a tin brimming with tasty treats. What if one of the established bakers took offence? What if I managed to get myself embroiled in some kind of confectionary war of attrition? Or, on the other hand, what if they didn’t like what I’d made? Of course, these scenarios are melodramatic, unlikely and really quite silly, but these elements of my personality have a habit of coming out when I’m engaged in things involving butter, sugar and eggs. Please don’t ask why (to be honest I’m a little scared to find out).

Two months down the line, however, I was riding a wave of small achievements and decided that it was time to roll up my sleeves, preheat the oven, and make some cookies.

I opted for lemon cookies, adapting Joy the Baker’s recipe, on the basis that I needed something fairly small, easy to transport and unlikely to evoke any kind of extreme reaction taste-wise. These fit the bill perfectly, and went down very well indeed – perhaps a little too well, as a colleague marched over to where the tin was sitting and firmly placed the lid back on it, claiming she wouldn’t be able to stop eating the cookies otherwise. I took this, as well as a question about whether I’d put any kind of illegal, addictive drugs in the mixture, as a compliment of the highest order.

The use of icing sugar rather than, say, caster sugar, means that these are incredibly light-textured biscuits which still have a satisfying biscuity crumb, and the lemon juice and zest means that the taste isn’t overly sweet or cloying. Perfect with a cup of tea, but be warned , it’s very difficult to just eat one.

Lemon cookies

1.5 cups plain flour
3/4 cup cornflour
4 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 cup icing sugar
2 large eggs
Juice of half a lemon
Zest of one lemon (the other half lends itself perfectly to slicing for use in a gin and tonic)
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and line two baking trays with baking parchment

1. Sift together the flour, cornflour, baking powder and salt, and set aside.

2. Cream together the icing sugar and butter – this will result in clouds of icing sugar billowing up and coating any nearby surface/you. Beat until light and fluffy before adding the eggs one at a time, mixing well before each addition. Beat in the vanilla, lemon juice and zest. Don’t worry if it looks curdled at this point, the addition of flour will solve this.

3. Mix in the flour mixture until everything is combined.

4. Using a teaspoon, portion out the dough onto baking trays. The biscuits will spread slightly as they bake. At this point, the original method calls for you to press a criss-cross pattern into the biscuits using a fork. I failed spectacularly at this, finding that the mixture just adhered itself to the fork. So I mashed them down as best I could, all the while thankful that this in no way affects the taste.

5. Bake for 20 minutes and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Due to the small portions, this yields around 45 cookies, again making it an ideal ‘bring and share recipe’ as it avoids that awkward moment when there aren’t enough to go round, leaving someone sad and sugar-deprived. The cookies will keep for a week or so in an air-tight tin.