Iron Chef Challenge Week Two: Lemon and Ginger

This week's Iron Chef Challenge hosted on MyZoestrope featured the ingredients Lemon and Ginger.  You would think this would make for a much easier challenge, only there were so many possiblities it was a little hard to narrow down.  But C is for cookie and that's good enough for me!  These Glazed Lemon Drop Cookies contain chunks of crystallized ginger and were pure vegan gold according to my kids.  The recipe is a twist on a VegWeb recipe and goes something like this:

Glazed Lemon Drop Cookies with Crystallized Ginger

What You Need:

1 cup sugar

1 stick Earth Balance, softened

1/2 cup vegan sour cream

1/2 cup vanilla soy yogurt

Juice and zest of 1 Lemon

2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/3-1/2 cup of chopped crystallized ginger

Glaze Ingredients:

1 cup Powdered Sugar

1/2 tsp ground ginger

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

What You Do:

Preheat Oven to 350F.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Beat margarine and sugar until creamy.

Beat in sour cream, yogurt, lemon zest and lemon juice

Sift in flour, baking powder and salt.

Mix until well blended.

Fold in chopped Ginger pieces.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls on to prepared cookie sheets.

Bake 10-12 minutes until the edges are lightly browned.  Cool completey before glazing.

To Make Glaze: 

Mix together powdered sugar, ginger and lemon zest until thoroughly combined. 

Add lemon juice until desired consistency is reached. 

Drizzle over cooled cookies.

 Allow glaze to set before eating.

A couple of notes:  I don't emphasize it but use organic ingredients whenever possible.  I would never recommend eating the zest of a non-organic fruit.  Also I used 1/3 cup of ginger for my cookies because my kids prefer the more heavily lemon flavor.  If you are cooking for a more sophisticated palate, I would recommend using the full 1/2 cup.

 Happy Mofoing!