Sour Lemon Snowball Cookies (#EatingA2ZChallenge K & L)

I'm on a lemon (and blog event) roll these days! It's fitting, since I always associate lemons with Summer (even though their season here is mid-Winter), and if it's something that's both sweet and sour at the same time my family and I are all for it! I think the tang of citrus manages not only to cut any "sugary" (or bitter, for that matter) taste from foods, but quells the heat of the day as well. Given that it's been hot and humid in my neck of the woods, something refreshing for dessert is always nice - even if it does mean turning on the oven!

I actually didn't know how much of a lemon lover my mom was until I made these cookies from Chocolate Moosey the first time.As you can see, all the modifications I made to the original (more out of necessity than desire to mess with her recipe: cake flour, canola/butter blend, hard candy instead of lemon chips [and way more candy than called for because I didn't measure]) resulted in snowballs that were looking decidedly melty. I learned two important things with that experiment: SilPat is a godsend and there is such a thing as too much candy in a cookie! I was about to bin the batch (or at least the majority of them that were looking very wafer-like) when my mom swooped into the kitchen on her lunch break and asked what kind of cookies these were. I gave her one, with the caveat that they didn't turn out the way I had hoped and was planning to toss them, but after her first bite I was scolded for my foolishness because they tasted fantastic eve if they were the ugly ducklings in the kitchen. She proceeded to package up the lot for "nibblies" during the week, something rather remarkable to me given that lately she'd been very "iffy" about eating things I've made.

While the original "melting snowballs" may have gone over well on the home front, I was still aching to make the perfect sugar-dusted spheres that Carla had depicted. However, I still had no actual butter, and found out that lemon chips are essentially extinct in the GTA, so I knew I'd have to modify it again! Luckily, this go-round was way more conducive to reaching my goal of cookies that held their shape - the main fat component this time was light cream cheese (a leftover from school), and I decided to up the "sour" factor a bit more with some citric acid as well as sour hard candy. Because I can hardly make anything without a whole grain somewhere, I made the dough with oat flour - which aside from being gluten free makes for an incredibly tender bite. Baked, they stayed round and tangy, with the bright yellow peeking out from beneath the powdered sugar coating, and the cream cheese gave them a slightly chewy bite that we loved here.

It's time again for the Eating the Alphabet Challenge hosted by Meal Planning Magic! We're into the month of K and L and I can't wait to see what everyone has on their plates this roundup. Be sure to check out all the treats below!



Sour Lemon Snowball Cookies
Inspired by http://www.chocolatemoosey.com/2013/01/15/lemon-snowball-cookies
Makes 24
4 oz cream cheese (I used low fat since that's what we had), softened
1/4 cup icing sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
2 tsp lemon extract
1 tbsp milk
¼ tsp citric acid
1 cup gluten free oat flour (or regular AP flour)
pinch salt
½ cup coarsely crushed sour lemon hard candy (about 12 - I whacked them with a meat mallet)
Extra icing sugar, for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 400F degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, lemon zest,lemon extract and citric acid until fluffy.
3. Add flour and salt, mixing well.
4. Fold in the crushed candy.
5. Roll into 1” balls.
6. Roll each ball in icing sugar and place 1” apart on the prepared cookie sheets.
7. Bake 5-7 minutes (cookies should not be brown).
8. Remove immediately to a cooling rack.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 48.5
Total Fat: 1.2 g
Cholesterol: 2.7 mg
Sodium: 14.3 mg
Total Carbs: 8.7 g
Dietary Fiber: 0.4 g
Protein: 1.0 g

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