My story from 2012, about the wonderful Glad cookie from that Christmas:
Last week I finished baking the last of the Christmas cookies. Encouraged by the happy eaters of the Lemon-Poppyseed Sandwich Cookies at previous holiday gatherings, this year I had made a double batch, and then ran out of time to complete more than half of them. The remaining dough and filling waited in the fridge until I got back some strength, and a plan for where to send the finished product so that I wouldn’t eat them all myself.
With so many young, even teen-aged, folk around here at Christmas, I expected to see the cookies go faster than they did. But never during the week of feasting did I spy anyone who might vie with me for the Cookie Monster title, and there are certainly no other contenders remaining in this house now. So when I found a willing person to be my delivery man, I sent them to Soldier and Joy.
The recipe (based on one not longer on the Epicurious site) starts with sugar cookies that are heavy with poppyseeds and two sources of lemon flavor, and finishes with the crunchy cookies enclosing an also lemony cream cheese filling.
At the epicurious.com site one can read comments from many readers detailing what happened when they tried the recipes, and the various changes that we daring cooks insist on making.
Most people who had made these cookies thought there should be more filling than planned for in the recipe as given, and I also ran out of filling at my first trial, so this year I doubled the cookie part, but tripled the filling. Not that it’s a problem to have leftovers of either. The cookies are wonderful by themselves, and the filling would be awfully nice spread on toast.
The majority of bakers also liked the cookies better after they had sat in the refrigerator and softened up, though the original recipe said to fill them not long before eating to keep the cookies crisp. I prefer them soft, as did most of the people I fed them to. They are good straight from the freezer, too, I found out!
Here is my version with the extra filling, and a couple of other changes, cut in half so that no one has to assemble 60+ cookies to find out if she likes them.
Lemon-Poppyseed Sandwich Cookies
COOKIES:
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
4 teaspoons grated lemon peel
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract
FILLING:
12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon lemon extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
FOR COOKIES:
Mix flour, salt and baking powder in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until light. Gradually beat in sugar. Beat in egg, then poppy seeds, lemon peel and extracts. Mix in dry ingredients. Gather dough into ball, divide into two parts and flatten each into a disk. Wrap in plastic and chill at least 2 hours. If wrapped well, it will last in the refrigerator over a week.
Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter 2 large baking sheets. Roll out 1 dough disk on floured surface to 1/8-inch thickness. Using 2-inch-diameter cookie cutter, cut out cookies. Arrange cookies 1 inch apart on prepared baking sheets. Gather scraps; reroll and cut out more cookies.
Bake cookies until edges just begin to color, about 18 minutes. (If you use insulated sheets as I did they might take longer.) Cool cookies on sheets 3 minutes, then transfer to racks and cool completely. Repeat rolling, cutting and baking with remaining dough. (Can be made ahead. Store in airtight container at room temperature up to 2 weeks or freeze up to 1 month.)
FOR FILLING:
Beat all ingredients in large bowl until light and fluffy. Spread 2 teaspoons filling over bottom of 1 cookie. Press second cookie, bottom side down, onto filling. Repeat with remaining cookies and filling. (Can be made ahead. Cover and chill.)
Some of the cookies in this later batch are a bit wrinkly, a result of the dough having dried out a little. I did add a few drops of water when I re-rolled the scraps and that helped them look better. But the wrinkly cookies were otherwise fine.
After my last post featuring a photo of lemons, Jody asked how I like to use these fruits. I consider myself a good person to ask, because my father raised not only oranges but lemons, and until a few years ago when someone very stupid — yes, I mean it — took out the two large trees that remained from ten acres of lemon grove, I used to have as many lemons as I wanted for free.
Lately I’ve been using a lot of lemons just to add the juice to hot water for drinking on cold days. But of more elaborate recipes, some that I’ve loved over the years are Lemon Curd, Greek Egg-Lemon Soup, Lemon Chicken, and Lemon Pudding Cake. And now — Lemon-Poppyseed Sandwich Cookies!
Gladsome Lights 
Now I know what to cook for Christmas.
AMDG
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And how is it, dear JG, that you found out that these cookies are even good frozen? Isn’t the freezer generally a good place to hide tempting goodies away most of the time ? These must be awfully good.
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Indeed, that year, people said they were their favorite of all I made. 🙂
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Those cookies look absolutely delicious!
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Those look like my kind of cookies. . . even without the filling.
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I would love to be your taste tester for these yummy sounding and looking cookies. I can’t imagine someone wanting to cut down a lemon tree that is producing lemons!! Merry Christmas Season to you!
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Ellen, it’s the factory farming mentality. My father had taken out most of ten acres of lemons because the whole crop would freeze so often it was not profitable. He replaced them with oranges such as he had on another twenty acres, but left two of the lemon trees where they were.
Later he sold off the groves for the most part with the understanding that as long as he lived on the property he would have personal picking privileges. They even had a discussion about the lemon trees. So he was surprised and disappointed to see that they’d been removed. My father himself never had enough property or the twisted perspective to be a factory farmer himself.
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Sandwich cookies are a little labor intensive but everyone seems to love them. Yours sound wonderful and I was tempted to print it out except for the fact that I’ll do well enough to make the number one cookie request from my family, Viennese Sandwich cookies where lemon is also the dominant flavor in the filling. Oh, and after the cookies are put together, there are two more steps. Rolling about half the edge into melted chocolate and then dipping the chocolate edge into Sprinkles. My sons insist they’re even better refrigerated. The older I get the shorter my Christmas baking list gets but these stay at number one.
I could cry at your father’s loss of the lemon trees!
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The Lemon-Poppyseed cookies look tasty. Thank you for the recipe. If I find the energy to make them I will, otherwise I’ll keep the recipe for another time.
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Scrumptious! What a beautiful history of the lemon trees.
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I am truly thankful for lemons. Just as you stated many recipes need this citrus. Now as for your cookies which I am longing to taste and wish we lived closer so I could be a recipient of a few of them at least. If I could first taste them then I would know if I should make an entire batch. But then again I might get a notion to try baking them the first of the year. We stick to sugar and ginger/molasses cookies at Christmas.
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That sounds like a plan – maybe during the period of the Twelve Days of Christmas? 🙂
In recent years that slower time has found me in the kitchen “catching up” on my baking.
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This recipe sounds delicious and your cookies look so good! Thank you for the recipe – I will copy it and make it when I will find some time.
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Yum! As a lemon lover, I am going to save that recipe! I don’t really eat a lot of cookies anymore (for several years I have had histamine issues, and citrus was a no-no), but for a special occasion to share with others, I will make these! Thanks for sharing!
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