Mondays with Maida - Tropical Sour-Cream Cookies

Page 176 in the old book / page 209 in the new book

Lemon juice and the grated rind of both lemon and orange give these soft cookies a very nice citrus flavor, but they have an unfortunately bland appearance. They need something to pretty them up - perhaps some of that decorating sugar with the larger crystals with a touch of orange and yellow sugar thrown in (I prefer to mix a little colored sugar into a larger amount of white sugar so you get lots of sparkle and crunchiness, but just a bit of color).

I'm convinced that inside this rolled cookie there's a drop cookie crying to get out. I tried rolling the dough on a floured pastry cloth, but despite eight hours in the freezer it was still soft and sticky, so I decided to roll it between sheets of wax paper. The problem then was removing the waxed paper. I persevered and managed reasonably well, but I knew there was no way I was going to be able to roll out the scraps (oh, and that large chunk that was hopelessly stuck to the waxed paper). So I scraped the remaining dough into a little heap and then used a couple of spoons to scoop and push it onto the parchment. In the photo above, the rolled cookies are in the foreground and the dropped cookies are behind them. They are more similar in size then they appear in the photo.

I told most the panel that I had made both dropped and rolled cookies. Suzanne and Terri each had a dropped cookie. Denny and Laura had one of each. Laura knew she had one of each, but Denny did not. I think the consensus was that the dropped cookies were just a little better - they were a little thicker. The recipe calls for the cookies to be sprinkled with a bit of granulated sugar, but I forgot to do so with the rolled cookies.

Here's the panel...

Suzanne: "I enjoyed the orange taste to this cookie and it probably would have tasted great with vanilla ice cream. I prefer a crunchy cookie and this cookie was soft. There was nothing about the round cookie that was appealing to the eye. It was rather non-descript other then it had a pleasant fresh orange taste. Rating: 3.0"

Denny: "OK, couldn't taste the tang of sour cream, but caught the hint of citrus. 3.0 minus 1.0 (no chocolate deduction) = 2.0, but they weren't terrible. I may have to rethink the no chocolate deduction. Rating - 2.0"

Laura: "Cathy rolled some and dropped some. I tried the rolled cookie first. It was chewy on the inside and crispy-ish on the outside. The dropped cookie was moist and fluffy on the inside - almost cake-like. Both have a lovely lemony flavor (I prefer the dropped version). Rating - 3.5"

Terri: "These have a very fresh taste with the orange flavor. I liked the texture and thickness. The sugary topping was good but not necessary. Rating - 3.5"

Overall rating by the panel - 3.0

Next Week - Tropical Sour-Cream Cookies

Nutrition Facts