With the changing of the seasons, I wanted to do a big send off. I brought out my Taste of Home book again and checked out the seasonal section. I found something fast and easy that would please Liz; Root Beer cookies. These would have been fast and sweet and have a nostalgic taste of summer picnics and ball games. However, we could not find root beer concentrate anywhere. This is a seasonal ingredient and so we changed it with lemon; another light, summer taste. This was as easy and fast as advertised.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup softened butter

• 1 cup packed brown sugar

• 1 egg

• 2 tsp lemon concentrate

• 1 3/4 cups flour

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1 1/3 cup confectioners (powdered) sugar (apparently the same thing)

• 1 tsp water

Prep

1. Preheat the oven to 375 F (190 C)

2. In a small bowl cream (fold over mildly gently, not whisk) 1/2 cup butter and brown sugar. This should get it light and fluffy like thick whipped cream. Grab a whisk (if you don’t have a mixer as always) and beat in the egg and 1 tsp of lemon concentrate.

3. Grab a different bowl and mix the baking soda, salt, flour in a powdery mess. Pour this in small bits into the other mixture while continuing to mix. I recommend not using the whisk here as it clumps easily. Try not to use too much power or take too long here. It’ll make it too tough and reflect that in the final bake.

4. Take a small amount and roll it in your hand like people used to do with Airheads to make a tiny ball. It should be like half an inch or so long and place it on a baking sheet, tray or whatever you use for cookies.

5. Bake for around 8 minutes, the bottoms will turn brown before the tops. Move to a drying rack and repeat until you’re out of batter. I was able to make enough for 33 finished cookies (two cookies to a finished one.)

6. Take yet another bowl and add the last tsp of lemon concentrate, the tsp of water, the sugar and the last 1/4 cup of butter. Mix this until it’s a creamier icing. Ice one of the cookies and attach a second, butts together to make like a mini whoopie pie.

Afterthoughts

These cookies were soft baked and crumbly in the mouth. The lemon taste was slight in the cookie but much stronger in the icing to make sure you knew you were eating lemon. This was a light and uplifting taste overall and as someone that normally doesn’t like lemon sweets, I did enjoy the few I ate. I think this cookie wouldn’t be hurt with other flavors but it’s not necessary. I can easily see how you can replace lemon with any flavor you want. The original root beer, vanilla, or even mint concentrate. I wonder what the rum concentrate would do? This is a nice summer snack that isn’t the normal chocolate chip that you’ll be used to seeing. Give the people something new with this refreshing taste of summer.