How I tried to put my committee in a sugar coma so they wouldn't ask questions -or- Lemon/Lime cream cheese meltaways

Whew! Was that the longest title ever or what?

I just made myself a ridiculously strong cup of coffee this morning, so maybe that has something to do with my overzealous title.

Anyway, I am free! Well, sort of. I am done with my second committee meeting at least. I still have mountains of things to accomplish between now and when I leave for the field in three weeks, but the stressful, try not to look stupid in front of my committee members part, is over.

My school has this little tradition where we students are supposed to provide snacks and coffee for our committee meetings. I would do it anyway, but the fact that it is expected sort of annoys me. Luckily for my committee stress makes me eat, which makes me bake. I had been wanting to re-try this Cooking Light recipe with limes anyway.

For those of you who have never had meltaways before they are sort of like crumbly sugar cookies. They have the weirdest mix of ingredients ever. In fact, if there were some way for me to give you this recipe without letting you see the list of ingredients I would. So, don't be scared off when you see it.

The real star of these cookies is the glaze. It is a snap to make and comes together like magic. I am not a sugar freak the way some people are, but I couldn't stop eating the glaze. I ate so much glaze that I passed out on the kitchen floor in a sugar coma until Mr. Man found me in the morning covered in dried sugar. It was really embarrassing, to say the least.

Lemon and Lime Cream Cheese Meltaways
adapted from Cooking Light

These cookies do not taste good warm. They also taste way better with the glaze, than without. So, be strong and try to not eat any before they are completely done. But, by all means placate yourself with the glaze. Also, you can use 1/3 less fat cream cheese if you like. Next time, I am going to try upping the cream cheese in place of butter. Let me know how it turns out if you try it.

1 1/4 c. unbleached, all-purpose flour
1/2 c. cornstarch
1/8 tsp. salt
1 c. powdered sugar
1/2 c. butter, room temperature
1/4 c. cream cheese
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375°.

Mix together the flour, cornstarch, and salt in a medium bowl. Mix 1 cup powdered sugar, butter, cheese, and vanilla together in a large bowl with a mixer until the it becomes light and fluffy. This should take about 3-5 minutes.

Then add the flour mixture and stir, with a spoon, until just combined, no longer. The dough be very crumbly. Take about a tablespoon of dough in your hands and roll it together. It is okay if they are not perfect balls, you don't want to compress or overwork the dough.

Place the balls about 2 inches apart on baking sheets. If you don't have enough space to bake them all at once, go ahead and roll out the rest of the dough anyway, it gets more difficult to work with as it sits.

Bake at 375° for 10 minutes or until the bottom is light brown. They won't look done on the tops, take them out anyway.

Let them cool for five minutes on your cookie sheet. Cooking Light tells you to then move them to a rack and let them finish cooling there. I do not have a well equipped kitchen, so I just put mine on a plate. They didn't seem to mind.

After they have finished cooling, glaze them. Just dunk the tops of the cookies into the glaze and allow them to dry for at least half an hour.


Lemon or Lime Glaze
I made both for this one batch of cookies. I just cut the two ingredients listed below in half.

1/4 c. Lemon or Lime juice
zest of one lemon or lime
1 3/4 c. powdered sugar
Mix together with a wire whisk.

The crumbly batter.