Margarita Cookies

This weekend, my friends and I decided to camp out at Daniel's house to celebrate everyone being back in town from college. I told them to make some food requests and I would bring some goodies to snack on. Nikki requested margarita cupcakes, but I figured that the cupcakes wouldn't do very well out in the open, so I decided to look for a margarita cookie recipe. I found this one over at Smitten Kitchen and decided to give it a try.

Ingredients

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened

2/3 cup Confectioners' sugar

2 large egg yolks

pinch of salt

2 teaspoons tequila (I used one teaspoon Jose Cuervo Premium tequila, and one teaspoon Jose Cuervo Premium margarita flavored tequila)

Grated zest of 2 limes

2 cups self-rising flour

Coating:

1/2 cup clear sanding sugar

2 teaspoons flaky salt (I used regular table salt)

Instructions:

1. Beat the softened butter in an electric mixing bowl with the paddle attachment until creamy. Add the Confectioners' sugar and beat until the mixture is smooth. Beat in one of the egg yolks, followed by salt, tequila, and lime zest. Reduce the mixing speed and add the flour just until incorporated. Do NOT over-beat. I only used the mixer for about 20 seconds after I added the flour, and then I used a rubber spatula to mix it the rest of the way.

2. Turn the dough onto a floured surface, gather into a ball, and divide it into two. Wrap each half in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

3. After 30 minutes or more, remove the dough from the fridge and roll into logs that are about 1 inch - 1 and 1/4 inches thick. I ended up having to divide each of the halves again, then rolled the fourths into smaller logs. Re-wrap each log with plastic wrap and place back into the refrigerator for about 2 hours.

4. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. While the oven is preheating, prepare the sugar/salt coating. In a bowl, whisk the remaining egg yolk until it is thin enough to be a glaze. Spread the salt and sugar onto wax paper or a cutting board. Remove the dough from the fridge, brush with the egg yolk, and roll through the sugar and salt.

5. Slice the logs into 1/4 inch thick cookies, and place on a lined cookie sheet, spacing each cookie about 1/2 inch apart. *Don't forget to line the pan with parchment paper. I forgot, and you'll see how that turned out..*

6. Bake for about 12 to 14 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely on a cooling rack before removing them from the pan.

As you can see, I forgot to add parchment paper to the pan. I was only able to save about 30% of the cookies :( They were pretty yummy, though! I might tweak them a little bit next time, though, because they were a teensy bit dry. But all-in-all, the flavor was very good.