Lime Cookies and the Roman Empire

Guyanese Dessert

LIME COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

1¼ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2¼ cups flour
½ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup butter, softened
1½ cup sugar
3 tablespoons lime juice
1¼ teaspoons lime zest (You might need to buy limes and a zester)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater
2 baking sheets
parchment paper

Makes 36 cookies. Takes 1 hour 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add baking powder, cinnamon, flour, nutmeg, and salt to medium mixing bowl. Mix with fork or whisk until well blended. Add butter and sugar to large mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on high until well blended and fluffy.

Gradually add in lime juice, lime zest, and flour/baking powder mix from medium mixing bowl into large mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on high until cookies dough is well blended and fluffy.

Cover baking sheets with parchment paper. Take cookie dough and roll it into a 36 1″ balls. Place cookie-dough balls 1″ apart on parchment paper. Flatten dough balls slightly with hand. Bake at 350 degrees for 14 minutes or until cookie edges turn golden brown. Cool on racks for 20 minutes or as long as you can wait.

TIDBITS

1) Historians call the fixed defensive system along the borders of the Roman Empire, “limes.”. Why did the Roman Empire need to defend itself so vigorously? Because the barbarian hordes lurking outside the Roman world wanted the plunder the Romans’ limes. Why did the barbarians yearn so for limes? For its vitamin C, of course. Also, it impossible to make Lime Cookies without limes. Everybody loves lime cookies, whether civilized or barbarians and the Romans prized their Lime Cookies, even to the death. Hence, the “limes” defensive system. Can you blame them?

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.