Tickled Pink Lemonade Cookies

This is another cookie recipe from Joanne Fluke's murder mystery series and comes from the book The Red Velvet Cupcake Murder.  Winter is finally, slowly, leaving Interior Alaska, and that's always very exciting.  Before I moved here, I never thought a bare patch of ground would be such cause for celebration!  It's hardly summer yet, but when everything started melting, I immediately thought of this happy, summery cookie from a book I read in the dead of winter. 

It was a good choice, too, because these cookies are quite good!  They have a definite lemonade flavor without making your mouth pucker up, and the pink is rather charming.  The cookies themselves are thick and cake-like, which is a nice change.  They're good on their own, but the frosting definitely adds to the appeal.  My only change for next time will be to make a double batch because I only got 24 cookies.  I gave half of them to a neighbor (my entire excuse for making cookies to start with) and the two of us plowed through the remaining cookies in short order.
 

The only changes I made to Joanne's recipe were to use less red food coloring and more milk and pink lemonade concentrate and frosting.  More milk because the frosting was very stiff, and more concentrate so the lemonade flavor would be apparent.
 

 

Tickled Pink Lemonade Cookies

 

for cookies:

1 stick butter, softened

1/2 C sugar
 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 egg
1/3 C frozen pink lemonade concentrate, thawed

red food coloring, as desired

1 3/4 C flour

 

for frosting:

2 Tbsp butter, softened

2 C powdered sugar

5 tsp milk

4 tsp frozen pink lemonade concentrate, thawed

red food coloring, as desired
 

For Cookies:
 

Preheat oven to 350 and line baking sheets with parchment paper.
 

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy.  Mix in baking powder, and baking soda, then egg and lemonade concentrate.  Beat until thoroughly mixed.  It will look curdled, don't worry!  Stir in red food coloring to make the dough as pink as you'd like.  Stir in flour until well combined, but don't over mix.

At this point, you can refrigerate the dough for half an hour if it's too soft to work with, but mine was fine.  Use two spoons or a small cookie scoop to scoop small walnut sized blobs of dough onto the prepared cookie sheets, 2 inches apart.  Bake until the cookies are set and just barely beginning to turn very light golden in some spots, about 10-12 minutes.  Let cookies cool completely, then frost with the frosting.

For Frosting:
 
Place butter and powdered sugar into a mixing bowl and beat until the butter is dispersed, it will look very dry.  Add milk and lemonade concentrate, and beat until smooth.  You can add more milk or more powdered sugar if it's too thick or too wet.  You want a smooth, spreadable consistency.  When you've reached that, stir in red food coloring so it's as pink as you'd like.  I didn't use any for the frosting because the pink lemonade concentrate made it ever so slightly pink on its own.

Frost cookies with frosting, let them sit out until the frosting is dry to the touch, then store them in an airtight container.  I can say they stay good for 3 days, maybe longer, but that's as long as they lasted here!

Yield:  About 24 cookies