Butter Cookies

Pistachio, Lemon, and Basil Butter Cookies

~ Judy's Chickens ~ 11 Comments

This cookie. Oh. My. Goodness. You eat one and a few minutes later, you are already thinking, I think I’ll have another!

The texture is somewhere between a scone and a Mexican Wedding Cookie, making it the perfect cookie to have with a cup of coffee or tea. There is a harmonious balance of savory flavors: the crunchy roasted pistachios, the hint of basil, and the subtle background taste of citrus, all in a lovely buttery dough. The cookie dough is as good as the cookie!

Yield: 3 dozen

Ingredients:

1½ cups (3 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
4 cups (18 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon table salt (as opposed to the larger crystals in flaked or kosher)
2 generous tablespoons lemon zest (from 1 large or two average-size lemons)
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (from 1 lemon)
⅔ cup roasted, unsalted chopped pistachios (I use Trader Joe’s), or almonds
⅔ cup fresh basil leaves, chopped

Mise en Place:
I’ve included a tutorial on preparing these ingredients at the end of the recipe.

Instructions:
Mix the butter, sugar, and egg together in a bowl for just a minute on medium speed, scraping the batter from the sides and bottom as you go. You do not want a big fluffy batter.

Next, add the nuts, basil, lemon zest, juice, and flour mixture.

Mix on “stir” speed until all the ingredients are blended. Don’t overmix, or cookies will be cakey. Chill dough for an hour or up to two days.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350º. Line three cookie sheets with parchment paper. Use a teaspoon to scoop up a rounded heap of chilled dough or use a #40 cookie scoop to do the job. (Find out what “#40” means here.)

Shape dough into rough balls and place on cookie sheet.

Flatten dough with the bottom of a glass. Use your fingers to shape the sides so the edges are smooth.
 

Bake for ten minutes and then rotate pans on oven racks and cook for another 8-10 minutes. Check bottom of cookie for doneness. It should be light brown.

Remove pans from oven and place cookies on a cooling rack.

Personally, I think these cookies are better the next day, but I have also seen them disappear at a party two hours after coming out of the oven!

A Note About Reading a Recipe:

When reading the ingredients list of a recipe, note the difference that has to do with the measured volume, for example :

⅔ cup roasted unsalted chopped pistachios
⅔ cup fresh basil leaves, chopped

For the pistachios, you measure ⅔ cup of nuts after chopping. For the basil, you measure ⅔ cup of leaves and then chop them.

The Mise en Place Tutorial:
Measure out the flour, salt, and baking soda. I weigh flour (as opposed to using measuring cups) because it is faster, less messy, and assures consistent results. All-purpose flour weighs 4.5 ounces per cup, multiply that by 4 cups, and you get 18 ounces. Be sure to zero out the weight of the measuring bowl first.

If using a measuring cup, fluff up the flour in the bag with a spoon, spoon into a measuring cup, and level with a knife. If you stick the measuring cup directly into the bag and scoop it out, you could add as much as an extra quarter of a cup of flour. Multiply that by 4 cups, and you get an unintended extra cup of flour!

Whisk the flour, salt, and baking soda together to evenly distribute the ingredients. This used to be called “sifting.”

This is an old sifter.

Prep the add-ins: the zested lemon, lemon juice, chopped pistachios, and chopped basil.

Use a micro grater (Microplane) or a box grater to zest the lemon peel. I prefer the Microplane because it only skims the peel; the box grater digs into some bitter white pith. An average lemon yields a tablespoon of zest.

You can use a citrus reamer or a lemon squeezer to juice the lemons. If you use a reamer, pick out the seeds and leave the pulp.

To prep the pistachios, I pound the nuts with a meat mallet in their bag, remove what I need, and store the remainder in the freezer. Or, I pulse the nuts with the basil in a mini food processor.  Always taste a nut from the source bag before cooking with it; nuts have a lot of fat, and the fat can go rancid. If nuts don’t taste good or if they smell bad, don’t use them. They’ll ruin your cookies.

Snip the leaves off the stems and either chop with a knife or pulse with the nuts in the food processor.
 

You are now ready to mix these ingredients in the batter.

I hope you enjoy these cookies and have learned a little something in the process!

Related Posts:
Italian Ricotta and Lemon Cookies
Italian Sesame Seed Cookies
Award-Winning Chocolate Chip Cookies
 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies
My Favorite Rollout Butter CookiesCookie Scoops as a Unit of Measure
Tools for the Cooking Life
How to Make Royal Icing and Decorate Cookies

I have adapted this recipe from one I saw in Edible Nashville. Thankful to my friend, Jill Melton, cook, gardener, writer, creative editor, and publisher of Edible Nashville, for sharing it.

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© 2014-2021 Judy Wright. All rights reserved. Photos, videos, and text may not be reproduced without the written consent of Judy Wright.

My Favorite Rollout Butter Cookies

~ Judy's Chickens ~ 17 Comments

I am a baker at heart.

I love making pies for Thanksgiving, Italian cookies for Christmas, cakes for birthdays, and frosted rollout cookies for any event where children are in the house.

I loved the days as a teenager when I baked sweets for my brothers and the neighborhood kids, and then, as a mother, when I rolled out cookies with my sons.

When it comes to making dough suitable for cutting out cookies, there is one recipe I have used for the last thirty years, Bee’s Mother’s Butter Cookies. I laugh when I look at the recipe in my old cooking diary because it reminds me that at one time I thought I could save a few calories by cutting out a third of the butter. As if.

What is the difference between cookie doughs designed for rolling out versus  drop cookies? You won’t see baking powder or baking soda in the list of ingredients. Those ingredients, both leavening agents, are added to make baked goods rise, spread, and become airy. Rollout cookie dough should not spread in the pan. We want sharp, crisp edges and tender centers.

What I especially like about Bee’s recipe is it is not too sweet, it has a lovely buttery flavor, and a hint of lemon. Texture-wise, if I roll the dough out to a quarter-inch thickness, the cookies have just the right amount of chewiness for my liking. My new adjustable rolling pin assures a uniform thickness.

Even as a seasoned baker, I sometimes mess up on how long I bake cookies. I want them light in color, but if they are not cooked enough, the taste can be off from not cooking the flour long enough. If they are too dark, they are not as pretty as they could be. Cook them until the edges just start to brown. Having said all that, for whatever reason, the cookies always taste better the day after you frost them.

A few words on measuring flour:

The proper way to measure flour is to lightly spoon it into a dry measuring cup and then use the flat edge of a knife to level it. If weighed, one cup should equal 4.25 ounces.

Yield:  75 ¼-inch thick cookies

Ingredients:

6 sticks (1½ pounds) butter, at room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 large grated lemon rind
8 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and then leveled in a dry measuring cup

Instructions:

Measure flour into a medium-sized bowl. Set aside.

Zest one lemon. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar for two minutes on medium speed. Add eggs, one at a time, vanilla, salt, and lemon zest. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Be sure to scrape down dough on sides and bottom of bowl.

Add flour and mix slowly. Once it is all incorporated into the dough, mix medium-slow speed for one minute, scraping sides and bottom of bowl as you go. Cover dough and place in refrigerator to chill for two hours or up to two days.

Remove dough from refrigerator and cut into portion sizes suitable for rolling. Allow to soften for 20 minutes before rolling. Dough should be softened and still cool.

When ready to roll dough, preheat oven to 350º.

Place a segment of cool dough on a sheet of parchment paper. Lightly flour the rolling pin, the cookie cutters, and the top of the dough. The trick to creating a nicely flavored, tender cookie is to use as little extra flour as possible and to not keep reworking the dough.

Using cookie cutters, cut the shapes as close to one another as possible.

Remove the scraps and put them in a pile. After you have rolled out all the dough once, take the scraps, knead them together, chill, and roll out again.

Place cookies on a parchment-lined (or ungreased) cookie sheet. They can be arranged close together because they will not spread. I like to get all the cookies rolled out first and then cook them.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until edges just start to brown. Shift pans around in the oven midway through the cooking time for more even browning. Always remember, the back two corners of an oven are the hottest.

Cool cookies on a wire rack. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

To learn how to make and decorate with Royal Icing, please look at this post.

Sometimes, I thin the icing, brush it on the cookies, and then immediately add the sprinkles so they stick as the glaze cools.

Allow cookies to dry for two hours before stacking and storing.

Related Posts:

How to Make Royal Icing and Decorate Cookies

Italian Sesame Seed Cookies
Italian Ricotta and Lemon Cookies
Three Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies
Oats, Ginger, and Cranberry Cookies

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Always check my blog for the latest version of a recipe.

© 2014-2019 Judy Wright. All rights reserved. Photos, videos, and text may only be reproduced with the written consent of Judy Wright.