These look like the margarita cookies and the candied ginger cookies, but they are not! They have just a hint of clove that make them different (enough).

I’ve been avoiding log cookies, as usual, but I figured I’d have to make them eventually. Here it goes. 

Step 1: Gather ingredients: Flour, butter, sugar, egg, lemon extract, cloves, salt. 

Why lemon extract instead of fresh lemon juice?

Step 2: Whisk together flour, cloves, and salt. 

Step 3: Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

I’m used to this pattern now.

Step 4: Add egg and lemon extract. 

Plop.

Step 5: Add flour mixture. 

The next step is to make logs, so I took Martha’s advice and cut a paper towel roll to help hold the shape.

Step 6: Form dough into two logs, wrap in parchment. 

Um, that doesn’t look like it’s going to make very round cookies.

Step 7: After refrigerating, cut into 1/4-inch slices. 

You know what I need? Some kind of precisely-measured cutter. Mine were all sorts of thicknesses.

Step 8: Bake. 

And clearly the thickness influences the final size.

Step 9: Make the glaze: mix powdered sugar, lemon extract, water. 

That looks gross.

Step 10: Drizzle glaze over cookies. 

I tried drizzling from a spoon, but that did not remotely work. I ended up pouring (poorly) it into a Ziploc bag and cutting the corner off.

Please excuse my finger in the corner of this shot. There was nobody around to take the shot of me, so I took this quickly. I had to finish watching Ratatouille!

Link to original recipe

Yields: 60
I got: 48

Start time: 8:00
End time: 11:00 (3 hours)
Martha’s estimated time: 1 hour, 30 mins (WHAT!)

What did I learn? 

• Rolling the log in the paper towel roll helps form the shape.
• The glaze made the cookies sweeter, masking the clove.

What do I need to learn?

• Why lemon extract instead of fresh lemon juice? I’m guessing it’s because this was a McCormick-sponsored recipe and they want to sell their extract, but correct me if I’m wrong.

These were popular, both glazed and unglazed. Like I said above, I think you could taste the clove more when you ate an unglazed cookie.

Lots of people at work ate these. Please comment! You know this is required reading in exchange for me feeding you people.