Chewy Lime Sugar Cookies and the Thumb Zest-er

Okay so it may be obvious by now that I love baking cookies. I don't know what more perfect food there is. You can throw anything in cookies and they will still taste incredible. Nuts. Chocolate. Granola. Coconut. Fruit. Dried fruits. Strange spices. Tea. Peanut butter. And now limes!

I love limes for some reason. I'm not really sure what it is but there is something about a lime which makes it just a million times better than a lemon. I've had the recipe for these "chewy lime" sugar cookies saved for some months and when I came home from school this weekend I thought they would be a good thing to make.

Boy was I right! I baked them Friday evening. My parents had friends over Friday night and these cookies met with rave reviews. The original recipe is from My Baking Addiction and there is a version of these cookies made with lemon as well. This recipe is very simple but of course I managed to make a couple mistakes. My butter was melted, not fluffy at all. And when I was supposed to me zesting a lime I ended up zesting my thumb! My thumb may have suffered but the cookies, miraculously, did not. Hooray! Another successful baking adventure in which I manage to keep the blood away from my creation!

Chewy Lime Sugar Cookies Yield... about 40 or so I believe. They went fast so I didn't have much time to count.

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of one large lime, finely minced (nooooot your thumb. Ugh)
3 tbsp lime juice (I used the juice from 2 limes)
½ cup shredded coconut
sugar for rolling cookies


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray two cookie sheets.
2. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy. I of course, had the butter in the microwave softening for too long and ended up with sugar/butter soup. Delicious still, but not what the recipe calls for.
3. Beat in egg, vanilla extract, lime juice and lime zest. Mix in dry ingredients and coconut.
4. My dough (because it had melted butter in it instead of room temperature) was not sticky enough to roll in the sugar so I chilled it in the fridge for an hour. If you too melt your butter this is a quick and easy fix. YAY!
5. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls, and roll in sugar. Place on lined cookie sheets and bake 8 to 10 minutes in oven, or until golden brown.
6. Let stand on cookie sheet for a couple minutes before loosening. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

 Butter and sugar... Definitely not smooth and fluffy...

 Poor bloody knuckle... and the weapon of choice in the background.

Very flat, but still very chewy. And completely addicting. I've been eating them for breakfast they're so good!

A Long Awaited Post and Banana Pecan Walnut Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies for the Soul

It has been a long, long time since my last post. I apologize to the three-ish (or less?) people who read this blog. It was an unintentional absence. As you can imagine, the end of my first semester in college was a busy time and then it was the Holidays. I didn't have time to post all the wonderful things I found myself baking over break but I am back in action now!

I made a wide variety of cookies, cupcakes and desserts over the holidays. I baked from scratch. Baked from boxes. And then I did something so very unbakerly (that's my new word. I made it up. Impressed?) that it shouldn't even be called baking... No I think "take and bake" cookies is more "faking" than baking, don't you agree? (They taste amazing though. Nestle sure does know how to refrigerate dough!)

Anyway. I was not lacking in baked goods over the holidays thanks to family friends, Christmas gifts in the form of food, my mother's delicious desserts (pumpkin cheesecake and tiramisu, anyone?) and my own skills in the kitchen. I will hopefully be able to write more about those recipes at a later tonight but today... We're going to talk about the Banana-pecan-walnut-oatmeal-chocolate-chunk cookies with my best friend Katie. (Yeah, same name. It's cool, I know.)

So one day Katie came over and said "Do you have something delicious you've baked recently that I can eat?" Okay clearly, she knows me too well. On this occasion however I had nothing to offer her because I sadly had not baked in a while. We decided to rectify the situation immediately by baking some cookies of our own to eat.

Katie and I made the most amazing banana cupcakes once and ever since then I've been wanting to do something else with bananas. Unfortunately, we're both disgusted by mushed up bananas so that part of this recipe was no fun. I had the unhappy task of squishing the banana since she did it when we made those cupcakes. Anyway, banana squishing unpleasantries aside, this recipe/experience was a definite success. We photo-documented the whole thing very well, don't worry.

Which further ado, here is the incredible recipe (or link to it, because I am that lazy today) and lots of photos to keep you entertained. Eat up!!

 ew.

YUM.

 My mom made this for me when I was much, much shorter...

 She made this for my brother. It looks good on Katie, too.

 We had an accident... poor wasted cookie. Just kidding. It wasn't wasted... I may or may not have eaten the parts that didn't fall on the floor.

 There was a NUT in my apron pocket!

 Katie :) What a cutie.

 Our weirdly perfect cookie.

 Me and Katie. The bakers. The aprons were my moms and grandmothers.

Finally product!!! Looks good, right? Wrong. It was delicious. Almost like a banana nut muffin in cookie form.