I used an AMAZING sugar cookie recipe that I found here. Baking has never been my strong suit and I was still able to pull these off and send them to friends with pride instead of embarrassment. One year, I tried to make cinnamon rolls for my husband to take to work and I had these neatly crafted, disgustingly dense cinnamon rolls that ended up in my trash bin. And, cinnamon rolls take a lot of work to boot! Anyway, I made up a bunch of traditional sugar cookies and decided to have some fun with the remainder of the dough.

I rolled approximately two cups of dough into a log shape. Then, I rolled the outside of the log in the zest from lemons, limes, and oranges (be generous). I refrigerated it overnight and then sliced it up and baked it according to the recipe’s directions. Once the cookies cooled a bit, frosting couldn’t be easier with a blend of powdered sugar and lemon juice (a little liquid goes a LONG way). Tip: spread the glaze out thin on the cookie or else the powdered sugar taste overpowers the subtle flavors of the sugar cookie.

Additional Tips:

Store dough logs upright in a drinking glass while they are being refrigerated. This will keep your dough from getting a “D” shape from laying on their belly.

The refrigerated dough log makes uniformity easy to achieve.

One dozen sliced cookies ready for the oven! Tip: Be generous with the 1 inch spacing between cookies. This recipe made cookies that expanded quite a bit.

No rolling pin? Me neither. A wine bottle dusted in powdered sugar does the trick.

Note: There is absolutely nothing vegan or healthy about these cookies. But, they are delicious and it’s the holidays, right?