Lime Sugar Cookies - a recipe 10 years in the making

While I love to cook, my real passion is baking.  Cooking is fun because you get to experiment on the fly and taste along the way, but baking is an art that requires precision and lots of anticipation.

I usually don't like to share my baking recipes mostly because I am still working on most of them tweaking little things here & there.  This weekend I made lime sugar cookies for my good friend Robin's birthday and have deemed the recipe 100% complete.  

I have been working on this recipe for a long time, the original recipe was for a Lemon-Sugar cookie that had a lot of potential.  I have always liked the flavor of lime over lemon, so I started by just switching out the citrus fruit in the recipe and 10 years and about 30 tweaks later I give you my perfect lime-sugar cookie.

BEFORE

You can see that there are no crazy ingredients, but I would call your attention to the Ground Vanilla Beans as they ended up being the final ingredient in this perfect chewy cookie.

AFTER

Here you see the result - perfectly crackled round sweet citrus cookies that are crisp on the edges and chewy on the inside.  There are fun to make with kids as once the dough is made, they can help with rolling the dough into small balls and then coating them in sugar before baking.

Make a batch for yourself - 

Ingredients:

• 1 stick (4 oz) of unsalted butter slightly chilled 
• TIP: I take the butter out of the fridge and let it warm up a little bit while I gather the rest of the ingredients
• 1 cup of sugar plus 1/4 cup more for later
• Grated peel of 3 limes, plus the juice of 1 lime 
• TIP: I use a microplane tool to get a light grate of the peel.  Be sure not to peel any of the pith (the white part of the skin) as that is bitter.
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt (you can use regular salt if you don't have sea salt)
• 1 teaspoon ground vanilla beans

Instructions:

1. Using an electric mixer, combine butter, 1 cup sugar, lime peel and juice and mix until fluffy. Scraping down the sides of the bowl several times while mixing.  This can take up to 10 minutes.
2. Mix in the egg.
3. Add the flour, baking soda and salt and mix until combined.  DO NOT OVER MIX this will make the dough  (& cookies) tough. 
1. TIP: Dough can be frozen at this stage and then used later on - good for 1 month in the freezer.
4. Stir in the vanilla beans with a spatula and ensure they are incorporated evenly into the dough
5. Transfer dough to a small container, cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
7. Place the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar in a small bowl.
8. Take a small spoonful of the dough and shape into a ball using your hands.  Roll the ball in the bowl of sugar coating completely and place on the parchment lined cookie sheet. Repeat with the rest of the dough.
9. Bake until edges of the cookies are golden brown, around 10-12 minutes.
10. Transfer to a cooling rack and once completely cool, put in an airtight container.