Butterscotch Lemon Cookies

Butterscotch Lemon Cookies - made February 28, 2010 from The Nestle Tollhouse Recipe Collection

We'd had some bad news about my uncle this past weekend and were visiting him and his family in the hospital so I baked a batch of these cookies to take to them. Fortunately I had made the dough for this a week ago and had it in the freezer so all I had to do was bake them off. Otherwise I was pretty much a wreck, baking-wise, as I proved with other attempts. I always maintain that baking helps me cope with things and de-stress from work and life. I found that's only true if I'm not on complete emotional overload. When I am, I'm too distracted to bake properly because I'm literally not paying attention to what I'm doing. I tried to use baking as a coping mechanism this time and it just wasn't working. I forgot to put chocolate chips in red velvet cookies that I made, I added too much cinnamon to an apple cobbler recipe that didn't even call for cinnamon at all and when I made a coconut cake, I didn't remember that I hadn't added coconut until I was about to pour the batter into the cake pans. Ugh.

These cookies survived my distraction because the dough was already made and I was careful to pay attention to the baking time since I didn't want the cookies messed up since I was taking them to my aunt and my cousin while we visited my uncle in the hospital. Not that they were really eating but I couldn't offer them raw or burnt cookies. This recipe is pretty easy to make and turned out pretty well. They didn't spread too much and the butterscotch and lemon flavors make a nice combination. The only change I would make next time is to cut back on the butterscotch morsels or use mini butterscotch morsels so they don't compete so much with the lemon flavor.

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup sugar
½ cup butter, softened
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
¾ of 12-ounce package (1 ½ cups) butterscotch-flavored morsels

1. Preheat oven to 375˚F. In small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In large bowl, combine sugar and butter; beat well.
2. Add egg, milk, lemon juice and lemon rind; beat well. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in butterscotch-flavored morsels.
3. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheets. Bake at 375˚F for 8-10 minutes. Allow to stand 2 minutes before removing from cookie sheets. Cool completely on wire racks.