Snowy Lime Cookies

I renamed these gems from "Lime Meltaways" to "Snowy Lime Cookies" because they don't really melt away in your mouth. Melting would require that you savor each delicate cookie by letting it gently rest on your tongue between bites. If you're anything like me, you're not that patient and when something tastes good, you chew as fast as you can, swallow, and reach for another. No time for melting. Do you see what I mean?

(Adapted from Martha Stewart's recipe for Lime Meltaways)

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup confectioners' sugar (1 cup total, see below)

Grated zest of 3 limes
4 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice (2 limes produced this much)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups, plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup confectioners' sugar

1. Cream butter and 1/3 cup of sugar together until fluffy using electric blender.

2. Add lime zest, lime juice, and vanilla to butter mixture and whip until fluffy.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients: the flour, cornstarch, and salt. Add this to the butter mixture and beat on low speed until combined. Now you have your dough.

4. Roll the dough into two 1 1/4-inch-diameter logs. I didn't have parchment paper which makes it easier to form into logs, so I just carefully used two pieces of plastic wrap.

5. Wrap logs in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

6. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

7. Slice chilled logs into 1/4-inch-thick rounds. Space 1 inch apart on baking sheet.

8. Bake until just barely golden. My oven takes 10 minutes. Yours could take shorter or longer, but I wouldn't recommend more than 15 minutes.*

9. Place on cooling rack.

10. While still warm, roll each cookie in remaining 2/3 cup of confectioners' sugar. You can also gently toss and coat the cookies with the sugar in a plastic ziploc bag, but I feel so terrible about using plastic bags and discarding them when I can just as easily use a bowl, that I prefer my non-wasteful method.

The baked cookies will store for up to 2 weeks in an airtight container. Mine didn't last for more than 4 days, but that's because I'm a piggy. You can freeze a log for up to two months according to Martha Stewart, but I haven't tried that yet so heed at your own risk.

*I baked my first batch for a full 15 minutes and they were way too brown on the bottom. Everybody's ovens differ so keep an eye on them from around the 8-minute mark to make sure you pull them before they get too golden.