Egg Yolk Only Sugar Cookies

Once again this weekend I was feeling the stress and so where did I turn, the kitchen! I had the best of intentions to be good and just bake and use it as a relaxer and not put any of it into my mouth, but after the second day and the crappy weather I caved and enjoyed all that I had made. And although I was rather frustrated and mad at myself for eating it all, I do have to admit that it was very tasty! (So at least I got that going for me!)

My parents were going to their home team or small group at church on Sunday afternoon and were supposed to bring the dessert. My mom had decided that she was going to make two different jelly roles, a lemon one and a chocolate one. Of course I volunteered to help! So Saturday evening after my vintage bike ride (my dads old bike from the 70's) we started baking. We made the lemon flour part first and while that was baking we made the lemon "jelly" inside. It turned out amazingly tasty and very fresh and lemony. Then we started on the chocolate outside part and mixed that up to bake. While these were baking I had found two new egg yolk recipes that I wanted to try. One was a yellow layer cake with chocolate frosting and the other were sugar cookies. With the vote of my mom and my brother we went with the sugar cookies. 

We started to mix up all the ingredients and because my mom always likes to cut the sugar we add 1/4 cup less sugar although we ended up making up for it with the sugar coating. I don't know why but the mixture turned out really dry and was pretty crumbly. Yet, we set out to make it work so we were going to. The only other thing that we changed was we added lime zest instead of lemon because we had just used the lemon for the lemon jelly roll. We then decided that we would make St. Patrick's Day themed cookies and be festive! So we rolled our finished balls of dough in green sugar. They looked pretty yet the only problem is that the added sugar made them even more dry. We cooked them on two different pans, a non-stick (dark) pan and a light pan. We thought that they would turn out better on a regular light pan but the opposite was true. The other odd thing about these cookies was the fact that once they were cooled they hardened up and were not longer soft or gooey even towards the center. That was a big disappointment because I think even sugar cookie needs to be soft. Yet, they still tasted good. I think they at least passed the taste test because although I never got an official ruling, I noticed that my dad was taking them by the handfuls to eat!

Egg Yolk Only Sugar Cookies
(this recipe is originally from the baking blog: cookiemadness.net)

They claim that this recipe makes the best sugar cookies! Thin with a crisp exterior
and a chewy, soft interior! (Although, I figured out the truth about this soft interior part!)

Cook Time: 10
Prep Time: 30

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 (slightly rounded – not quite ¾) teaspoon salt
2 sticks (8 oz) unsalted butter (if you use salted butter, use only
¼ tsp. salt), softened
2 cups, scant, granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon good vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
3 egg yolks

Thoroughly stir together first three ingredients. If you have time,
sift them.  Stir in the salt.

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the vanilla and
lemon zest, then one by one, beat in the egg yolks.

Slowly stir in the flour mixture. Mix well.

Form into 1 inch balls and place balls about 2 inches apart on a
non-stick or parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes or
until the cookies start to brown around the edges. Let cool on cookie
sheet for 2 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.

Next time I made these I will definitely be adding more egg yolks. I will probably add two more and see how they do. I will also possibly roll the dough into smaller balls and see how they do and maybe try cooking them for less time. Who knows, maybe the egg yolks will make it better all around! I guess we will just have to wait and see.