Cornmeal Cookies

I know what your thinking...I hadn't heard of cornmeal cookies either -- that is until I felt the urge to bake cookies last week and found the curious recipe in The Joy of Cooking. To everyone who tried these cookies, I described them as corn bread as it's should have been. It's not that I don't like corn bread -- I just can't bake it myself! And I call myself a Southerner...for shame! Now I can just bake these cookies instead to accompany Thanksgiving and down-home meals, and I'm pretty sure no one will complain!

The name of these cookies is actually "Cornmeal Citrus Cookies," but I cheated on the required lemon zest and used the same amount of lemon juice instead. We couldn't pick up much lemon flavor at all, but the cookies were so nommy anyway that we didn't mind. I'm sure using the correct ingredients would bring out the correct flavors though....

Cornmeal Cookies
Prep Time: Approximately 1 hour & 20 minutes
Baking Time: 6 - 8 minutes
Yield: About 7 dozen 2.5-inch cookies

Ingredients
(all at room temperature)
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter or margarine, at room temperature
1 cup sugar, processed in a food processor for 30 seconds, or superfine sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 large egg yolk
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup cornmeal
1.5 cups all purpose flour

Instructions
1. In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar, salt, and lemon juice on medium speed until very fluffy and well blended. Add egg yolk and beat until well blended. Add egg and vanilla and beat until well combined. Reduce the speed to low and beat in flour and cornmeal until just combined.

2. Divide the dough in half and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 2 days or it can be doubled-wrapped and frozen for up to 1 month.)

We ran out of plastic wrap, so I refrigerated them in plastic zip lock bags!

3. To bake, position a rack in the upper third and another in the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Remove one half of dough from the refrigerator and divide in half. Return the unused portion to the refrigerator.

4. Lightly flour the work surface. Roll the dough to 1/8 inch thick. Sprinkle the surface lightly with flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking. Cut the dough into desired shapes. Place the dough shapes on greased cookie sheets, spacing about 1/2 inch apart. Get as many dough shapes as you can out of each sheet, because the dough should be rolled only 2 times. Form the leftover dough into balls and flatten them to about 1/8 inch thick.

5. Bake, 2 sheets at a time, until the cookies are evenly golden brown, 6 to 8 minutes; rotate the sheets halfway through baking for even browning. Using a spatula, immediately transfer the cookies to racks to cool. Repeat steps 4 & 5 to use up desired amount of dough. Store leftover cookies in an airtight container.

I have to admit that our dough was super sticky, so we had to add a lot of flour while rolling. I enjoy rolling cookie dough and cutting out each cookie, so I chose that process over drop cookies, but you could do that instead if you like. You still would get your hands pretty messy by rolling the cookies into balls, so I think you'd need additional flour as well. Perhaps the lemon juice substitution resulted in the unusual stickiness, or maybe the humidity of our apartment did it. I hope your cookies give you less trouble but are just as nommy!

Did you know you can freeze eggs once they've been cracked? Now I don't have to rush to make mayo or other noms with my leftover egg whites or yolks; I can just freeze them until I need them! They can stay frozen for a year and must be thawed a day prior to use. Who knew?