Lemon Crumiri Cookie Recipe Washington DC

Audio slide show: Father Mike makes Lemon Crumiri cookies

Father Mike Librandi is a retired Catholic priest who lives in Rockford.

“I grew up in an Italian and German family in Chicago lots of years ago. Now that I am retired from the ministry, I developed a few Web stores. One of them offers Italian cookies for sale,” Librandi wrote of his CookiesItalian.com.

He got his basic cookie recipe from his paternal grandmother but has tweaked it over the years, including adding lemon zest and powdered sugar. The recipe:

Lemon Crumiri cookies

13/4 sticks (200 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup (150 grams) sugar
2 eggs at room temperature
13/4 cups (240 grams) all-purpose flour
One pinch of salt
2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (120 grams) fine yellow corn meal
Zest from one lemon (optional)
Powdered sugar (optional)

Cream the butter and sugar in a mixer bowl until very light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Sift the flour, salt and corn meal together and sift again into the batter; mix well.

You can use a pastry bag with a 3/8-inch star-shaped tip or a plastic bag with the corner snipped off to shape the cookies. Pipe 4-inch-long logs, 1/2-inch thick, about 2 inches apart on buttered and floured or parchment-lined baking sheets. Pipe the logs in the shape of horseshoes. (Another option is to refrigerate the dough and hand-roll it.)

Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Bake until lightly golden, about 12 to 14 minutes. Cool on racks. Dust with powdered sugar, if you wish, as soon as they come from the oven. Makes two dozen cookies.

See Father Mike make his cookies in our latest Hometown Recipes audio slide show, with this story at go.rrstar.com.

— GO