As you may have noticed, my birthday cake used nearly 20 egg whites. Some of these were already saved and stashed in the freezer, but I still needed a few more to make the frosting. This left me with 4 egg yolks sitting in the refrigerator - egg whites are very easy to freeze, but egg yolks have a tendency to get very rubbery and change their texture unless you add liquid or sugar. So before their time was up, I started finding some egg yolk-only recipes and loved the way the cookie recipe from Epicurious sounded and adapted it to my liking. I doubled this recipe and substituted orange zest for lemon, dried cranberries for the golden raisins.
This recipe is originally a slice-and-bake but I can never make the logs of dough perfectly round and they always become too misshapen, so I just rolled the dough out and cut heart shapes (of course), but I think it's completely understandable if slicing and baking is more your thing since I have a habit of making things much fussier and complicated than they need to be. These cookies are extremely tender and a beautiful golden yellow color, due to the egg yolks and crunchy cornmeal in the dough. They make a fantastic partner to a cup of hot tea :)
Cranberry Cornmeal Heart Cookies
Adapted from Epicurious
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon grated orange zest
4 large egg yolks
1 cup yellow cornmeal
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup finely chopped, dried cranberries
In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, sugar and orange zest until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. Stir in the egg yolks and beat well to combine. Add in the cornmeal, flour and salt and mix again until everything is almost incorporated, then stir in the dried cranberries. Divide the dough into 2 disks, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour or up to 3 days.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. and take the dough out of the refrigerator to thaw slightly. Roll out the dough to 1/4" inch thick and cut out desired shapes, placing on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake the cookies until very lightly golden around the edges and firm in the middle, 8-12 minutes.
Let cool on wire racks and store airtight for up to 1 week.
Great photos! Plus the recipe looks divine. We'd love for you to share your recipe at dishfolio.com!
ReplyDeleteThis recipe is delicious! I made these yesterday, with clementine zest, and similar heart shaped cookies cutters. They were FANTASTIC! A buttery crunch, a sugary crumble, and a light scent and taste of citrus. Perfect! and absolutely delightful with a mug of tea.
ReplyDeleteHowever, at the complaints of my dad, that I never make "normal cookies," I edited this recipe this evening in order to make them chocolate chip. I halved the recipe, and used a full tablespoon of vanilla, instead of the orange zest, and a 1/4 cup chocolate chips, instead of the dried cranberries. Although they were a slight hassle to roll thin, with the big chocolate chips, these were also very good, and worth giving a shot!