I’m kind of on a cornmeal in dessert kick. Don’t know why. Last month I hunted for the perfect cornmeal olive oil cake. This month it’s cornmeal cookies. I just couldn’t make them until I had a reason and Saturday night was the perfect opportunity. Our friends Mary and Pablo (Pablo the famous electrician and tamale maker extraordinaire) invited us for dinner. My contribution was a salad and that’s it but I somehow felt compelled to bring dessert too – that part struck me at 5:00 pm and we were to be there between 6:00 and 6:30. The pressure was on. I had been staring at a Polenta Cookie recipe for quite some time – from Food52 – submitted by someone named Emiko and it looked like I could get it done in the right amount of time so I decided to give the recipe a try.
I was a little uneasy because the last dessert experiment that was undertaken in my kitchen a couple nights before was a bit of a disaster (Right Auntie. . ..) but I thought this one looked pretty promising.
Polenta Cookies
(by Emiko via Food52)
Ingredients:
1 cup flour
¼ cup fine polenta or cornmeal
½ cup sugar
2/3 cups butter, chopped
2 yolks from medium-sized eggs
zest of one lemon or orange
Directions:
Combine the flours and sugar in a bowl, add the chopped butter and process in a mixer or, if mixing by hand, rub into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
Add the yolks and lemon/orange zest and mix until you form a smooth ball of dough. Rest the dough at least 30 minutes in the fridge (it can also be left overnight).
Roll the dough on a well floured surface until about 1/3 inch thick and cut out rounds with a cookie cutter (about 2 inches in diameter). Place on a baking sheet and bake at 350°F for about 15 minutes or until just golden.
