Sometimes it’s fun to just go with the flow when making our food. A little spontaneous dash of this and that in a recipe can keep things from getting boring. But I’ve found over the years that going with the flow when cooking (as in preparing meats and vegetables) usually works but having that attitude when baking (making cakes, breads, or cookies) can be a whole ‘nother thing.  Baking usually requires more accurate measuring and random additions of this or that can be more risky. But I let myself experiment a bit this week with baking these limoncello cookies and I’m happy to report that going with the flow worked just fine!

Adding Limoncello To Sugar Cookies

To make these limoncello cookies I started with my most reliable and favorite sugar cookie recipe that I’ve used before as a template to branch out to make other flavored cookies.  I’ve learned that I can add a new “wet” ingredient to this recipe (like molasses or peanut butter) if I cut back a bit on the butter the original recipe called for. I still had some of my homemade limoncello that I’m using up and decided to see if this could be a new “wet” ingredient to add to my sugar cookie recipe. And it worked!

Limoncello is an Italian liqueur that’s tasty for sipping or adding to cocktails but is often used in baking too. So I’m glad I figured out a simple way to use my limoncello in my baking just by tweaking one of my favorite cookie recipes. You might be able to use this strategy with one of your own favorite sugar cookie recipes too. And if you can’t find limoncello in the store, this is the easy method I use to make my own limoncello.

Once the dough is mixed together for these cookies, I roll them into balls between the palms of my hands and flatten them just a bit before I put them on the cookie sheets for baking.  I’ve been using my silicone baking mats that I received as a gift and they work great for cookie baking.

The Finishing Limoncello Touch

For a little extra lemon flavor I made a quick icing glaze using powdered sugar and limoncello. This is one of my favorite ways to add a little frosting to a cookie because it will dry up hard which means you can then pile your cookies on top of each other on a plate or in a container and they won’t stick to each other. Before the glaze hardened I added a few yellow sugar sprinkles for some extra color.  A bit of grated lemon zest could also be used as a topping for these cookies.

It’s also easy to vary the consistency of this icing glaze.  If you want a thin glaze, just add a little more liquid (in this case limoncello) and it will be a consistency better for drizzling.  If you want a slightly thicker consistency use less liquid and you’ll have a consistency better for spreading. My recipe below calls for 5 teaspoons of limoncello in the icing which was somewhat thin but still worked for spreading. You may want to add the limoncello to the powdered sugar one teaspoon at a time until you have the consistency you prefer.

So I guess this recipe gives us some opportunities to go with the creative flow after all, even if we are baking!