classic sugar cookies

i was looking for a new, simple, classic cookie recipe with which to fill my cookie jar when i came across this guy on the martha stewart website. this is a great little drop cookie with a clean, very slight lemon flavor and a nice crispy texture that continues to snap days after coming out of the oven. i made a few minor alterations to the original recipe, adding vanilla and substituting half the butter with non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening (the cookie eater in the house doesn't like things that taste too buttery). if you are a vegan i suspect you could easily swap out margarine and shortening for the butters and use one egg equivalent of the egg replacer of your choice (i usually bake with e-nergy egg replacer).

sugar cookies
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 Tablespoon lemon zest
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 t. vanilla
1 cup butter (i use 1/2 c. non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening plus 1/2 c. butter)
2 eggs

sift flour, baking soda and salt together and set aside. cream sugar, lemon zest and both sugars until fluffy. add eggs one at a time. add lemon juice. add dry ingredients and mix until just combined. drop onto cookiesheet (i used a heaping Tablespoon per cookie) and press down, giving the cookie a flat surface. sprinkle with coarse sugar and bake for 10-15 minutes at 350. the original recipe says to sprinkle some sugar on the surface of each cookie, then lightly stroke with a wet pastry brush, then sprinkling a little more sugar on top. i don't have a pastry brush so i skipped this step. they still turned out great.