Lemon Cooler Cookies

A few weeks ago I took my dad to a craft show at Dulles Expo Center.  I love planning day trips with him and he loves not having to drive in Northern Virginia.  On the way home I was planning to stop and pick up a snack at Hill High Orchard near Purcellville.  Dad used to stop here sometimes to pick up a pie on the way home from the airport (he is a retired airline pilot).  I love their lemon cooler cookies with white chocolate chunks and coconut and Dad loves anything lemon with sugar, so I thought it was a shoe-in.  But after getting off Rt. 7 in rush-hour traffic, finding out they no longer make lemon cooler cookies, and then waiting for them to find a lemon meringue pie in the freezer and cut a slice because there was none in the case, I was steamed because my neat little plan was making us late.  I found a gap in the cars long enough to get back on 7 and then vowed that I would figure out how to make the darn cookies myself.  Oh, and they don't sell Cheerwine any more either.  Boo!

My research indicated that the highest rated lemon cookie recipes online are the ones that contain a box of lemon cake mix.  I remembered that while at the store today, but I didn't remember that most of them call for a container of frozen whipped topping, thawed.  (Why can't they just say Cool Whip?  I'm still trying to figure out what "chocolate wafer cookies" are really called for a separate recipe.)  So tonight I picked out a lemon cookie recipe, no whip.  As the name suggests, they are indeed easy to make.  And I just happened to have partial bags of coconut and white chips, so I mixed in about 1/4 cup of each of those.  And the dough was pretty dense so I skipped the rolling-in-powdered-sugar step figuring they are plenty sweet already.

The first round was a little *moist* in the middle (and for someone who eats dough that's a good thing, but...)  The second round of dough balls were smaller (teaspoon vs. scoop) and I patted them down a little to make them cook more evenly.  In my oven they took the full 9 minutes and after the tips of the peaks got a little brown I took them out.  After cooling they were still soft but fully cooked, but a day later they were a little crispy.  I put some in a bag to take to my dad, and the rest I put in the freezer for the sake of my waistline. 

As a side note about my dad, we haven't always been friends but now we are and I'm so glad.  I think it took me getting married and moving away to make us appreciate each other.  Last night my mom had a meeting in my neck of the woods so I asked if Dad would like to hitch a ride to come watch the Olympics with me.  I made apple crisp and poured a couple glasses of port, and we ended up talking through the whole thing.  Mind you, we get together for coffee usually once a week so we talk plenty.  Sometimes we run out of things to talk about, but sometimes I get Dad talking and hear stories that I've never heard before.  Sometimes he helps me with house projects that Steve and I don't care to work on in our limited free time together, and Dad loves a project so he's always willing to help out.  Sometimes I make a snack for him and sometimes I put out the English tea biscuits, the kind with the chocolate that I'm coming to realize are his favorite.  Mom thinks it's his English heritage that makes him need to snack in the afternoon, but I think it's the sweet tooth.  Anyway, I am so thankful to be able to live near my parents and spend time together while we still can.