For the second day of my "twelve days of Christmas" blogging theme, I decided to bake some Christmas cookies (the first of many). This is my favorite time of year, which also means it's my favorite time of year culinarily. I love harvest foods, winter spices and holiday desserts more than the foods "typical" of any other time of year. I was flipping through a copy of Better Homes & Gardens and saw a bunch of intriguing holiday cookie recipes. This rosemary lemon cookie sounded interesting to me, though I was a bit skeptical about eating rosemary needles. I did alter the recipe a tad to make it more tangy and to cut out the sandwich aspect of it, as I knew lemon curd would go bad quickly and I wasn't going to be able to finish the cookies that quickly.

Rosemary Lemon Cookies
Makes about 20 cookies

Ingredients
1 stick of unsalted butter
3/8 cup of granulated sugar
1 teaspoon of fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon of finely shredded lemon peel (I added more of this)
the juice of half a lemon
1/4 teaspoon of baking powder
1/8 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 1/8 cup of all purpose flour

Recipe
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. In a bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, rosemary, lemon peel, lemon juice, baking powder and salt. Beat until combined, then beat in vanilla. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer, then mix the rest in manually.

Shape the dough into 1 inch balls, and place them 2 inches apart on a parchment-lined or greased cookie sheet. Dip the bottom of a glass into granulated sugar and use it to press the dough balls until they are about a half-inch thick. Bake the cookies for about 8 minutes, or until the bottoms are slightly browned. Allow the cookies to cool on the sheet for about a minute before transferring them to a wire rack to cool.

The cookies aren't for everybody; not everyone will want to chew into a rosemary needle, though the flavor was definitely very subdued after baking. The cookie was also very lemony in a good way -- if you'd prefer your cookies less lemony, omit the lemon juice. The cookies had a slightly chewy consistency and overall reminded me of candy. I'd definitely make these again!