I was introduced to Clotilde Dusoulier’s Chocolate & Zucchini food blog by my sister. She gave me a copy of Clotilde’s cookbook “Chocolate & Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen” for Christmas a year or two back. Each month this year, Clotilde has provided her readers with a downloadable desktop calendar. For the month of October, the picture was of these Lemon Butter Cookies (here’s the link to the October desktop calendar. So every morning when I logged onto my laptop at work, I saw these scrumptous cookies…I had to try making them of course! As luck would have it, the recipe was in the cookbook that I already owned! If you compare the picture above to the desktop calendar, you will see that my cookies and Clotilde’s cookies don’t look exactly alike and I am really not sure why that is…her glaze seems clear while mine is more opaque (I may not have beaten the lemon juice and confectioner’s sugar long enough)…regardless, they tasted as good as they looked. They had a sweet/salty/tart combination that was really intriguing.

Sables Au Citron (Lemon Butter Cookies) from “Chocolate and Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen” by Clotilde Dusoulier

1 organic lemon (I don’t believe I used an organic one..)
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon fleur de sel or kosher salt (I would not recommend substituting in regular table salt…trust me, it makes a difference)
7 tablespoons of chilled unsalted butter, diced
1 large egg yolk
1 cup confectioner’s sugar

Grate lemon to yeild a tablespoon of finely chopped lemon zest. Reserve the lemon for the glaze.

In large mixing bowl, combine the flour, granulated sugar, salt and lemon zest. Add butter and rub it into the dry ingredients using your fingertips or use a wire pastry blender. Add egg yolk, stir with a fork until blended and knead dough until it comes together and forms a ball. If the dough is too dry, add a little ice water one teaspoon at a time and knead again. If too sticky, add flour, one tablespoon at a time.

Divide the dough into two and roll each half into a log about 1 inch in diameter. Wrap each log in plastic and put in freezer for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 35o degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Remove one log of dough from freezer, unwrap and slice into 1/4 inch rounds with a sharp serrated knife, rotating the log by a quarter of turn after each slice so it keeps a round shape. Transfer onto baking sheet, leaving a 1/2 inch margin between them. Repeat with second log.

Bake for 12 minutes, until slightly golden at the edges. Transfer to a rack and let cool completely before glazing (about 1 hour).

Squeeze lemon to get 3 tablespoons of lemon juice. Put confectioner’s sugar in a bowl, add lemon juice and whisk until smooth and syrupy. Use a pastry brush or the back of a spoon to glaze the cookies. Let stand until glaze is set, about 1 hour.