Lemon Meringue Cookies
Whenever I see a lemon meringue pie, I picture my mom half a century ago opening the oven door and carefully placing her meringue-topped pie in the oven to toast. Sadly, lemon meringue was never my favorite pie and I stayed far away from that wobbly egg white concoction on top. I don’t remember even trying this pie as lemon and rhubarb were not high on my list as a kid. I’m pretty sure that mom’s lemon pie of yesteryear consisted of cook-and-serve lemon Jell-o pudding. Child me always went for the pies topped with whipped cream over meringue. However, I didn’t realize that not all meringue is created equal! The adult me loves lemon desserts. With spring in the air, I decided to make lemon meringue cookies. This sounded perfect since I didn’t need an entire pie. However, I didn’t pay attention to the meringue part of the recipe until I was whisk-deep into making it. Consequently, it took me three tries to make my meringue.
Baking all the Christmas Cookies
Family and friends aside, Christmas isn’t Christmas without the decorating, gift buying/wrapping and cookie baking. I’m happy to say that my decorating and most of my shopping were done the first week of December. So while I waited for the supply chain to deliver (or “find” in the case of Fed Ex) my goods, I sorted through many a cookie recipe to distill my 2021 baking selection and make my list of ingredients in preparation for the Brandt family cookie party (aka fiasco or chaos depending on your perspective). A houseful of loud, apron-clad women (and a few men) gathered at one of my sister’s houses last weekend. A medley of Christmas carols, holiday movies and KitchenAid mixers competing in the background made for a crazy-fun day in the kitchen. We made and sampled Salted Chocolate Gingerbread Men, Lemon Sables, Peanut Butter Cup Cookies, Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread, Glazed Ginger Cookies and the obligatory Frosted Sugar Cookies.