Author: Nicole

Pink’s Hot Dogs is a Los Angeles institution. It has been here in the City of Angeles for more than 70 years – and in the exact same location all that time. It started out as a simple hot dog cart and gradually built up into its current counter-service design.  The place is open late and it is almost always packed, with a line running down the sidewalk of hungry fans looking for a hot dog fix. They have all kinds of toppings for their hot dogs, from simple chili dogs to double dogs (two in a bun) piled with a ridiculous amount of toppings and named after celebrities who are loyal fans. The thing that makes their hot dogs special is not the long line or the toppings, but the dogs themselves. They are custom made for Pink’s, so you won’t find them anywhere else, and are exceptionally tasty as-is.

I stopped in the other night when the line was not too long for a hot dog fix and snapped a few shots of the delicious dogs I tried.  There are a couple of sizes of dogs available at Pink’s, but all are pretty large. These four hot dogs filled up an entire standard lunch tray!

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Chess pie is a dessert that doesn’t give anything away in its name. It’s a Southern classic pie with a custard base made up of eggs, butter and sugar. So far as I can tell, there is no one standard version of the chess pie and I’ve had many variations of it before, some that had a very dense, sweet, eggy filling and some that were more like a classic custard. The flavors have ranged from vanilla to chocolate to citrus. One of my favorites is a lemon chess pie. The way I make it, the pie has a lemon curd-like filling that is similar to that of a lemon bar, with a thin cake-like layer on top.

This pie only requires a few ingredients, so it’s important that you don’t skip out on using fresh lemon juice in your filling. It will definitely give you the best flavor, plus it will provide plenty of zest for making the filling bright and citrusy. There is a little bit of flour in the filling that will help form the sponge cake layer on the top of the cake. This top layer gives the pie a beautiful golden brown finish and adds a little substance to the pie. The filling itself is very light and smooth, with a lovely lemon flavor that is sure to be a hit with citrus-lovers.

I like a graham cracker pie crust for this particular pie. They’re easy and provide a nice crisp contrast to the silky pie filling, as well as adding a little extra flavor to each bite. You could certainly use a regular pie crust as long as you blind-bake it and let it cool before adding the filling (a totally uncooked crust won’t be cooked through with this filling, so the crust must be par-baked if using pie dough).

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When it comes to pie crusts, I am a firm believer in making my own when I can. They’re really not that difficult to make by hand, and you can also blend the dough in a food processor. The more you practice, the better you’ll get – and you also have a great excuse to bake more pies this way. Still, there are plenty of times when a premade pie crust can come in handy. I really like using premade graham cracker crusts for convenience and I’ve had some success with frozen pie dough, although homemade tends to taste better. I decided to give Trader Joe’s Frozen Pie Crusts a try because they’re made with real butter and I hoped that the finished product would have a good flavor.

These pie crusts come two in a package in the frozen foods section. They’re flat, so you’ll need your own pie plate to fit them two. You simply defrost the crusts, transfer them to your pie plate and bake as you would with homemade crust. Do not defrost them all the way to room temperature or they’ll be too soft to handle; aim for a chilled but flexible texture with these crusts. These will definitely not fit in a deep dish pie plate, as they just barely fill a regular 9-inch plate. You can roll them out slightly if you want more of a crust overhang on the edge of your pie, but that kind of defeats the purpose of using a ready-made crust.

After baking, I was really pleased with the flavor of the crust. It was light and had a nice butter flavor to it. I noticed that it was a tiny bit saltier than my usual crusts, but that is not necessarily a bad thing since most pie fillings are nice and sweet to start with. So, I’d have to say that these are a good, flavorful bet as far as ready-made crusts go, although they’re not as easy to use as pie crusts that come already shaped to a pie plate and do require prep time because they must be defrosted before using. The packaging doesn’t take up much room, however, so this might be just the thing to keep in your freezer as a backup when you just don’t want to do it yourself.

I don’t know about you, but I recently realized that I have quite the cookbook collection going on here. Unlike stamps or trading cards, people rarely start out to build a cookbook collection. Instead, they grow over time as you add a book here and there, take up a new type of cooking or baking, or browse through used bookstores until you find an old, forgotten gem. Like stamps and trading cards, however, everything that you can collect has some value attached to it. I flipped through a copy of the Antique Trader Collectible Cookbooks Price Guide to see if my out of control collection of cookbooks had any value besides their wealth of recipes.

It turns out that some of my oldest cookbooks, while they’ve risen from their sticker price or $2 of $4, aren’t worth all that much. Many of my newest cookbooks have sticker prices (and current values) much higher! My theory is that cookbooks are things that are kept for years, and passed along to friends and relatives. They’re not often sold, lost or destroyed (although spills in the kitchen will damage more than a few). So while my 1960 copy of Peg Bracken’s The I Hate To Cook Book is worth a lot to me, it’s not worth a whole lot on the market because there are plenty of other copies out there.

Most of the cookbooks listed in the Price Guide topped out at $20-$40, even for the very old cookbooks or small-run promotional books. Needless to say, I’m keeping my books for their content and for inspiration even when I don’t use their recipes. Does anyone else have older cookbooks that might be worth more than their recipes? Anyone else have older cookbooks, like me, that you couldn’t put a price tag on easily because the recipes are worth even more?

Fans of the Girl Scout’s Do-si-do cookies, also known as Peanut Butter Sandwiches, will notice some similarities between them and these  Toffee Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies. They look similar and both have a great peanut butter flavor to them. The signature element of those cookies is their light, crisp texture. These are chewier, making them a little more substantial, and I think they have an even better peanut butter flavor.

These peanut butter cookies have two ingredients that set them apart from your average peanut butter cookie: oatmeal and toffee. A little bit of quick cooking oatmeal in the cookie dough helps these cookies to bake up to be slightly thinner than your average peanut butter cookie, as well as a bit more tender. It also gives them a little bit of extra flavor. The toffee contributes a lot of flavor as well. Because it is finely chopped before being incorporated, it really almost melts into the cookies. When fresh from the oven, these cookies are tender and crisp around the edges, with a chewy center.

I sandwiched the cookies together with creamy peanut butter. The end result is a great combination of salty and sweet. That said, I must admit that the cookies are good on their own even without the filling!

These cookies are done when their edges start to turn golden brown. It may be tempting to overbake these cookies because they will look a little bit pale in the center when they’re golden on the edge, but overbaking them will only take away their chewiness.

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Popsicle-style cake pans – or pans that make small, flat cakes that can easily be skewered with a popsicle stick for a whimsical presentation of a cupcake – seem to be popping up all over the place lately. I’ve seen heart-shaped caksicles in addition to the classic popsicle-shaped Caksicle. The G&S Design Lollipop Cake Pan is a new spring-themed pan of the same type. The pan features three daisy-shaped cavities, three tulips and two butterflies, for a total of eight cake molds per pan. The pans are nonstick, for an easy release, and have just enough detail that the finished cakes will have a nice shape without too many nooks and crannies for the cake batter to get stuck in during baking. You can bake cake batter in these molds, but can also use them to shape cookie dough or even plain chocolate. The designs can be enjoyed year round, but really are perfect for spring and summer use.

Each pan includes a number of popsicle sticks so you’ll be ready to bake right away. Cookies, shortbread and other dense baked goods hold up well to the popsicle concept. For lighter or more delicate cakes (most, in my experience), the best way to serve these is by pairing up the shapes and sandwiching them together with frosting, inserting the stick and then dipping everything into a glaze (or melted chocolate) to coat the popsicle and keep hold everything in place.

Ad Hoc is one of Chef Thomas Keller’s restaurants in Yountville, California. The restaurant has an interesting story behind it, but even more interesting is the food, which is high quality, family style fare. They actually have just one menu each day – just like Mom might make (assuming that she is a truly excellent cook) for dinner. Since the food is homestyle, it’s not too much of a stretch to take their food from the Northern California restaurant into actual home kitchens. There is now a line of Ad Hoc food products to choose from, from a Fried Chicken Kit to gourmet cake frostings.

I don’t usually think of canned or jarred cake frosting as being a gourmet ingredient, but Ad Hoc’s Milk and Dark Chocolate Frostings certainly are that. These frostings are made with premium ingredients and are definitely a cut above your average grocery story frosting. Of course, at about $20 per jar – enough jar is enough to frost a 9 inch layer cake – they had better be a big cut above! Both frostings are rich tasting and creamy. I’ve had other dark chocolate frostings with a similar bittersweet flavor, so I wasn’t as impressed with it as I was with the milk chocolate option. The milk chocolate frosting really did have a great milk chocolate flavor to it, like hot chocolate or an actual chocolate bar. I haven’t had too many milk chocolate frostings with a similar flavor, and I know that I haven’t had a premade milk chocolate frosting that was anywhere near as tasty.

Both frostings were easy to spread and there was plenty in each jar to cover a cake well, assuming that you don’t eat a couple of spoonfuls straight from the jar (recommended on the label) before you finish off your cake! I don’t know that it’s worth the price tag when you could make your own frosting much less expensively, but because they are very good, they might be worth a splurge for yourself and would make a nice gourmet gift for a baking friend.

A good scone should be tender and buttery, and while it may not need accompaniments like butter, cream or jam to improve the overall flavor, it never hurts to have some at hand to finish the scone off as you eat it. These scones are a bit of an exception, because they really need no accompaniment – no matter how much you like spreading a bit of jam on your scones.

These Butterscotch Pecan Scones start out with a buttery, light scone dough and are studded with butterscotch chips and toasted pecans. Butterscotch chips are quite sweet on their own, but work very well against the buttery but not sweet background of the scone. I used lightly salted, toasted pecans in these to make sure that they would contrast well with the butterscotch chips and the butterscotch drizzle that I added. Feel free to use unsalted nuts, if you prefer, but do take the time to lightly toast them in a skillet to bring out their flavor and make them just a bit more crisp before adding them into the scone dough.

These scones are great when they are fresh, because the scone itself is crisp on the outside and very moist inside, with a great combination of flavors in each bite. I’d make them shortly before serving, if possible. That said, they do keep well when stored in an airtight container, loosing only a little crispness but none of the flavor. If you must make them in advance, don’t glaze them and pop them back into a 350F oven for a couple of minutes to freshen them up before serving!

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I find that it is very easy to remember a good dessert, but some desserts truly stick in your mind as something special. The cookbook Unforgettable Desserts certainly hopes to put each of its 150 recipes into this category, and offers a wide range of recipes, from very simple to complex showstoppers, to bakers to try. What you end up trying in your own kitchen and what you end up remembering is, of course, up to you, but there is no shortage of ideas in this book.

The cookbook starts out with a chapter full of basic recipes. From pie crusts to puff pastry, these are recipes that you’ll use over and over with the recipes in this book and with others. Ingredients and equipment are also touched on in an introductory chapter before getting into the recipes. The recipes are well written and easy to follow, and there are notes with tips on baking each specific recipe to help answer any questions that might come up while you work. I like the fact that many of the recipes have a twist that makes them stand out (hence the unforgettable name!), such as oatmeal cookies that sandwich a bright purple blueberry ice cream. That isn’t a dessert that you’ll easily forget.

The only drawback here is for photo fans, since not every recipe in the book comes accompanied by a photograph. This isn’t a problem for some of the cookies and things, but might make you shy away from trying the more involved cake recipes if you are the type who prefers to know what the finished product should look like, or wants some visual assistance when putting all the components of a dessert together. Still, a well-written recipe will get you through the process and if you just have a little extra confidence (and are willing to take a chance on decorating without a guide), you’ll do just fine here.

When liquours are included in baked goods, the flavor doesn’t always make it through to the finished product. This definitely isn’t the case for these boozy Irish Cream Brownies. There is quite a bit of Irish Cream mixed right into the brownie batter, infusing it with flavor. There is also some in the glaze that finishes these off, adding yet another little kick to these grown up brownies.

The brownies themselves have a nice chocolate flavor to them, as well. They are moist and tender, with a texture that falls somewhere between cakey and chewy on the brownie spectrum. There is only a small amount of leavening in the recipe to keep the brownies on the dense side and make sure that they taste more like brownies than cake (which they definitely do!). This recipe was inspired by one I saw that used some artificial Irish Cream flavoring. The real thing is a much better option, taste-wise. It also made more sense for me to use the real thing because, as much as I like Irish Cream, it is so rich that it takes a very long time to finish off a bottle and so I don’t mind using a very generous portion in baking from time to time.

These brownies keep well when they are stored in an airtight container. The glaze is a little on the softer side, so while it does set up, it may soften when the brownies are stored. Cut these into small pieces and serve them with coffee. Coffee will really enhance both the chocolate and the Irish Cream flavors.

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Buttery shortbread can seem a bit plain when you compare it to cookies loaded up with chocolate chips, nuts and other goodies. I’ll take it any way it comes, because I am a big fan of shortbread when it is good, but it is worth noting that there are plenty of ways to dress up this relatively simple cookie. One way is to bake it in a specially made shortbread pan. These shallow pans have designs stamped into the bottom that emboss the shortbread dough with a pattern as it bakes. When the shortbread is done and has cooled, it can gently be turned out of the pan to reveal the design. Another plus of this type of pan is that they also have lines indicating where the shortbread pieces should be cut, or could be broke off into individual servings.

St Patrick’s Day is coming up and this Celtic Knot Shortbread Pan would be ideal for dressing up a batch of shortbread for the holiday. Its swirling Celtic designs are very pretty, and a little bit more sophisticated than a pattern that relies on four-leaf clovers to evoke the holiday. This particular pan is ceramic and comes with a booklet of shortbread recipes to use with it, though most shortbread recipes can easily be adapted to work in a pan this size and shape

Irish soda bread is one of my favorite things to make when I want a quick loaf of bread fresh from the oven. Soda bread gets its name from the fact that it is leavened with baking soda, rather than with yeast. This means that very little time passes between starting to mix up bread dough and eating the finished loaf. Irish soda breads are moist, hearty and while there is a traditional way to make them, there is plenty of room for variation, too.

This Irish soda bread has some rolled oats in it and is sweetened with a little bit of honey. I threw in some raisins for good measure, partially because I like their moistness in soda breads in general, but primarily because their natural sweetness is brought out even more with the addition of the honey. This loaf is a little bit dense, but is tender and moist. It is great slathered with some butter while it is still warm from the oven – particularly if you are using Irish butter – and it also makes great toast. Despite the honey and raisins, it isn’t too sweet and pairs well as a side dish with chilis and soups.

Kneading soda bread gives it a better rise in the oven, so I always knead my bread for a minute or two before putting it on a baking sheet. I like to knead this type of bread right in the mixing bowl because there is no need to add additional flour that may toughen up the texture of the bread – and because there is no need to clean up the counter afterward! This recipe doesn’t make a huge loaf, but you could easily double the recipe and make two if you need to serve a crowd. I like big slices of soda bread personally, so I would say that this is a good sized loaf for up to 6 people.
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Kerrygold is one of the best known brands of Irish butter – perhaps one of the best known Irish brands period if you’re into cooking and baking. Irish butter is a European-style butter and has a higher butterfat content than the average American butter. This translates into a richer, creamier texture for the butter. Kerrygold’s is a little different from other European butters because it has a lot more flavor. It has a tangy note that might remind you of cheese or buttermilk, and as unusual as that might sound at first, it is that little extra bit of savoriness that makes this butter a real standout. That extra flavor is said to be the result of the rich, grass-heavy diet that the cows have in Ireland.

It tastes fantastic smeared on a good piece of bread or toast, and unlike plain butters, it adds a lot of complexity to each bite. It is available in salted and unsalted varieties, and is easy to find in many grocery stores, and even easier to locate at specialty grocers. It is a a bit expensive compared to standard butter, so while it is great for cooking, I’ll often save my block of Irish butter for finishing off dishes or spreading on pieces of baguette. If you haven’t tried it before, I’d recommend starting with Kerrygold Salted Butter and a nice loaf of bread so you can get a feel for the flavor.

I was shopping at Sur la Table the other day when I overheard a saleswoman trying to help a young French woman find a specific type of sugar for a recipe she wanted to make. There was a little bit of a communication problem taking place and as I listened in (I happened to be standing next to them and also looking at baking products, not simply trying to eavesdrop!) I realized what the girl was after: pearl sugar. It turned out that she wanted to make a batch of chouxquettes and needed the coarse sugar to lend them a crunchy exterior. I politely suggested the pearl sugar, and the saleswoman was able to find her a box and send her on her way – and I was left with a desire to head home and make a batch of chouquettes myself!

Chouquettes are cream puffs that have been rolled in pearl sugar before baking to give them a crisp, crunchy exterior. They’re not filled with cream of any kind, unlike regular cream puffs; they simply start out with the same choux pastry that cream puffs do. I didn’t see them when I was in Paris last year, but I first heard about them a few years ago when David Lebovitz mentioned making a batch of the popular French snack.

Choux pastry is not difficult to make and you can whip these treats up in just a few minutes at home, although you will have to wait a bit as they bake to indulge yourself in them. They’re light and eggy, with a lovely sweet crunch to them. They are absolutely at their best when they are fresh out of the oven. Use pearl sugar for the best sugary crunch and to get the same speckled look that these have. If you don’t have any and can’t find it, use another coarse sugar, or even some crushed sugar cubes, and generously sprinkle some on before baking.
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You’ll notice that most baking recipes these days call for lining a pan with parchment paper. It is widely available, but can you substitute it with similar looking wax paper if you don’t already keep it in your kitchen? The short answer here is that wax paper may look similar to parchment paper, but it is quite different, and it is not ideal for baking.

Wax paper is coated with a thin layer of wax to make it water resistant. It is often used in the kitchen for food storage purposes, since something wrapped in wax paper will stay much fresher than something wrapped in a non-waterproof material. While it is not nonstick in the same way that silicone-treated parchment paper is nonstick, the wax makes it nonstick, so it is a good choice for rolling out pie or cookie dough.

But as useful as it is, it is not a good choice for baking. At high temperatures, the wax on the paper can melt and will transfer to whatever you are baking. The food grade wax is not toxic, but it’s a good idea to keep it out of your baked goods. The wax will transfer to your baking sheet and may require additional cleaning. The wax also has a fairly low smoke point, which means that any exposed wax paper will smoke while it is in the oven and there is a possibility that, if you are cooking something that requires a very long baking time or very high temperature, the paper could actually catch fire. If you use wax paper to line the bottom of a cake pan, it will not smoke but you will still have wax transfer.

Stick to parchment paper – which is reusable, completely nonstick and is generally heat resistant to around 450F – for your baking needs, or simply fall back onto an even older technique to prevent sticking: lightly greasing a pan with oil. I also like to line the pan with aluminum foil and lightly grease that to minimize the amount of cleanup you need to do after baking.

When it comes to kitchen gadgets, do you put function over form? As much as I like a good-looking kitchen tool, I have to admit that I would choose a simpler tool over a decorative one. You don’t have to make that choice with the good-looking Take the Cake Cake Server, which is beautiful and still very functional. The server is made out of a single piece of mirrored stainless steel, with one end that acts as a handle and one that acts as both a knife and tongs. You simply press the wide end of the cutter down into any round cake, making a slice about 2-inches wide, then gently squeeze the handle end together as you lift the spice out, creating just enough pressure to pick it straight up and transfer it to a plate (or a napkin for immediate consumption!).

The server is about 9-inches long and 2-inches wide. You could easily store it in a drawer, but I would definitely consider hanging on a wall to display until I needed it to serve dessert.

Samoas are easily my favorite Girl Scout cookie because of all the great contrasting flavors and textures they have. It is a shortbread-type cookie topped with caramel and toasted coconut then dipped in chocolate. I like them so much that I have a homemade version that lets me make them any time I want – no Girl Scouts necessary – as well as a slightly easier bar cookie variation that still captures those flavors. This time, I have yet another variation on the theme with some Samoas Cheesecake Bars. They’re not quite as cookie-like as my other homemade Girl Scout Cookie recipes, but I’m pretty sure that those girls could easily sell just as many of these bars!

These cheesecake bars are fairly easy to make and start off with a shortbread base topped with a layer of vanilla cheesecake, a combination I’ve used before in Vanilla Bean Cheesecake Bars. The bars are topped with a mixture of caramel and toasted coconut, then drizzled with chocolate. The result is a delicious bar with a buttery crust, creamy cheesecake, gooey caramel, crisp coconut and rich chocolate.

The only trick to making these bars is that you need to make the caramel sauce by hand. It needs to remain soft when refrigerated because the cheesecake bars need to be stored in the refrigerator. The bars are a bit less satisfying to eat when the caramel hardens up and you can’t slice into them! This caramel is smooth and rich tasting, and remains soft enough to slice easily after it has been spread on the bars and chilled, though it is firm enough that it won’t run everywhere and make a mess. You could get away with using a thick, store-bought caramel sauce if you want to give a shortcut a try, though.

This recipe makes a big batch that is easy to share, but equally easy to enjoy yourself. They keep well in the refrigerator, so you can take your time eating through them. There are several stages to making this recipe, but most of the down time is just waiting for things to chill. Be a bit patient and the results will be well worth it!

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Food allergies can range in intensity from mildly annoying to deadly serious. They can force strict limits on what an allergy sufferer can, and cannot cook – which is especially tough if you’re used to whipping up a favorite batch of peanut butter cookies before your child is diagnosed with a peanut allergy, or you’re diagnosed with a wheat allergy. Allergy-Free Desserts: Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Egg-free,Soy-free and Nut-free Delights is a cookbook that provides plenty of tasty baked goods and desserts that look and taste like the “real thing” but should fit the diets of many food allergy sufferers, allowing you to create all kinds of homemade goodies with no worries about what the reaction to them will be.

Allergy-free baking requires that you make quite a few ingredient substitutions, so the book starts off with an introduction to some of the ingredients you’ll find called for in the book, what they’re used for and what they taste like. All the guess work in using these ingredients has been taken out of thee equation when you’re working with the book, but in addition to being able to bake the included recipes, you’ll also get a sense of how to better use these things to adapt other favorite recipes.

The recipes in the book are friendly and easy to follow along with. The ingredient lists are short, despite the inclusion of some ingredients that you might not recognize right off the bat, and so are the instructions, which read just like those of a “regular” recipe. There are many photos of the finished products to inspire you and keep you on the right track as you work. You’ll find recipes for cookies, bar cookies, quick breads, cakes and candies. You can preview a few right on Amazon’s website, too, including Pretend Peanut Butter Cookies and Cool Mint Patties.

A big container of fresh blueberries sitting on the counter is just asking to be used in a recipe. I like blueberries in all kinds of desserts and baked goods, but I have to admit that breakfast foods usually spring to mind when I think about using them. Blueberry muffins, coffee cakes and pancakes are all classics in my book – so for a little bit of a change while staying in the breakfast mindset, I opted to make some Fresh Blueberry Waffles.

These light, buttermilk waffles have fresh blueberries cooked right into them. They are tender and moist, with a good buttery flavor to them that sets off the blueberries very well. They are not very sweet on their own, despite the inclusion of the berries, which means that you can indulge yourself with as much maple syrup as you like when you sit down to enjoy a big plateful. Stick with fresh blueberries if you can, because frozen berries will add a lot of extra moisture to your waffles and could make them a bit too moist in the center as they defrost during cooking.

The only potential drawback to using whole, fresh berries is that they can – and will – pop while your waffle is cooking. A good, thick batter will definitely help to contain them, but I would opt for using a regular waffle iron (shallow squares) rather than a Belgian-style waffle iron with big, deep squares that leave you with shallow walls that won’t hold the berries together quite as well. Also, make sure that your waffle iron is well-greased so that any popped berries will still release cleanly with the rest of the waffle when it is ready.

These freeze well and can be reheated by defrosting them in the microwave, then putting them in a 350F oven for about 5 minutes to let them crisp up again.
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Girl Scout cookies come and go, and not every cookie recipe makes it to the cookie booths every spring. Lemon coolers are a retired Girl Scout cookie that many lemon-lovers have fond memories of. Unfortunately, memories are all that they have because these cookies aren’t offered in this year’s line-up. I liked the bright, lemony flavor of these cookies too and also appreciated the fact that they were a little different than the rest of the Girl Scout’s offerings. I wanted to try and give them the same treatment as some of my other favorite Girl Scout cookies and come up with a homemade version.

There was one big problem with this plan: my memory of the cookies – along with a photo of a Lemon Coolers box  – were all I had to go on when creating the recipe. My memory was of a crisp, tender cookie that was lemony and coated with confectioners’ sugar. I remember it having a much lighter texture than, say, a shortbread cookie and I also recall that it was fairly sturdy, not crumbly. So, my interpretation is based on this template. I will admit that if you pulled out a 12 year old box of Girl Scout cookies to compare these to, they might not be twins, but they’re definitely going to satisfy a craving for a crisp lemon cookie and match the look of the originals.

I used cake flour with a very little bit of cornstarch mixed in to give these their light texture. They’re softer than shortbread, but still have a nice crispness to them when you take a bite. I used real butter, which the original cookies probably did not, but I opted to use lemon extract (lemon oil is also a very good choice) instead of fresh lemon zest because that is closer to the flavor I remember in the originals. To give them that lemon-slice shape, I formed the dough into a log, chilled it, then sliced it in half before cutting the individual cookies. This made it very easy to shape them all and ensured that they all came out to the same size.

These cookies turned out to be very close to what I was looking for in a faux Girl Scout Cookie. They are slightly sweet and have a nice lemony flavor to them. I baked them just until the edges turned golden, which make for a crisp-tender cookie, and generously dusted them with confectioners sugar while they were still slightly warm. They kept well for several days without loosing their taste or texture, but they were so light that they were easy to eat two at a time.
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