Crispy Lemon Cookie
Our dear friend, Brian Levy, @bybrianlevy, who wrote the cookbook Good and Sweet, broke the code on a mystery we were struggling to solve: how to make a crispy cookie with our date sugar. By nature, our sugar tends to be great at making fluffy cakey cookies and fudgey cookies but we had yet to get the proportions right for a crispy one. Here, Brian has artfully crafted a beautiful crispy lemon cookie that we are obsessing over. You must try them immediately.
“I'm a broken record, but...date sugar is not like other sugars, because it's made from whole fruit, dried and ground to a powder. That means that in addition to its natural sugars, the powder contains a bunch of fiber--plus potassium, magnesium, and antioxidants.
If you've read Good & Sweet, you know that sweetening with fruit rather than added sugars is more complicated than any 1-for-1 swap, precisely because of the nutrients that fruits add to the equation. But with the right types and ratio of fats, flour, starches, plus tweaks to shaping and baking time and temperature, I ended up with a perfectly crispy and delicious, deeply flavorful lemon cookie, sweetened with date sugar and which happens to be gluten-free.”
Ingredients
1 ⅓ cup (120 g) oat flour
¼ cup + 2 tsp (35 g) cornstarch, or a 50/50 blend of potato starch and tapioca starch
1 ½ cup + 2 tbsp (230 g) Organic Date Sugar
½ tsp fine sea salt
½ tsp baking soda
1 small organic lemon
½ cup + 1 tbsp (110 g) extra virgin olive oil
1 large egg
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
If you plan to bake immediately (as opposed to saving the dough for later), position two racks near the middle of the oven--not the highest and lowest positions--and heat the oven to 325°F convection (preferable) or 350°F for non-convection. Line two 13 x 18-inch half-sheet pans with parchment.
In a stand mixer bowl (this cookie dough can also be made in a food processor or with a bowl and wooden spoon), combine the oat flour, starch(es), date sugar, salt, and baking soda. Use a microplane to zest the lemon, and add the zest to the flour mixture.
Juice the lemon. It should produce about 30-45 ml (2-3 tbsp) of juice. In a spouted cup, combine the juice with the olive oil, egg, and vanilla. Whisk together with a fork.
With your mixer—affixed with the paddle attachment--running on low, slowly add the liquid mixture to the dry. Continue to mix for a minute or two, until it comes together as a soft, glossy, homogeneous dough. At this point, you can chill the dough in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, or you can proceed to forming the cookies.
Clear some counter space and cut two 5-inch squares (no need to be precise) of parchment. Find a small plate or pan that has a completely flat bottom. A tortilla press would probably also work. Use your palms to roll all of the dough into 30-gram balls (a bit smaller than a golf ball), storing them on one of the line sheet pans as you go. Once all of the dough has been rolled (you should have 20 balls), sandwich a ball between the two parchment squares and press firmly with your plate or pan until it’s been pressed into a 3 ½-inch circle, about 1/8-inch thick. Unpeel the dough disc from the parchment and place it on the empty, lined sheet pan. Repeat for the remaining dough balls, leaving ½” of space between the cookies. They won’t spread much like traditional cookies.
Just before putting the cookies in the oven, lower the oven’s temperature to 300°F convection / 325°F non-convection. Bake for 20 minutes, until deep golden and just slightly darken around the edge. Let rest on a cooling rack until the cookies and pans have completely cooled to room temperature (they won’t be crisp until then). The key to keeping these cookies crisp is to store them in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
Recipe created for Just Date by Brian Levy, Author of Good & Sweet