Lemon Shortbread Cookies:
Literally the best cookies ever! These light, buttery cookies offer a subtle lemon flavor, and are topped with a bright and vibrant lemon glaze, giving you a mouthful of delicious goodness. These are special cookies.
So special, I have made an apple version for the fall–apple shortbread cookies.
Lemon Shortbread Cookies/h1>
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These Lemon Shortbread Cookie embodies the taste of summer! It is lemony sweet and sour goodness with a light, refreshing, taste, and a melt away goodness. These are one of my favorite cookies, but warning, they are dangerously good, and come together start to finish in less than 15 minutes, so it is easy to succumb to their siren’s call. You may find yourself eating the whole batch, so bake with a friend, there is safety in numbers!
The first time I madeLemon Shortbread Cookies I made them too sweet, so I played around and tweaked them until I reached utter perfection. But I wasn’t sure I could trust my own judgement because I was kind of in a sugar coma haze of deliciousness. So I took them to bowling league.
Fun Fact about me: I love to bowl.
The ladies at league gobbled them up. Everyone raved about them, and a month later when we were having a bowling pot luck they all asked me to bring them again. I am not just saying these are the best cookies ever. Literally every single person who has ever had the privilege of eating one has agreed with me. So do yourself a favor and make a big batch!
Baking Tools Used:
These are shortbread, so they are soft with a bit of crispness on the edges. They end up so tender and just melt away in your mouth.
Making Lemon Shortbread Cookies
- Choosing Your Lemons: For these delights, I used Meyer lemons the first time I made them. They are slightly sweeter variety, and make for a nice alternative if you don’t like pucker. You can also use baby sweet lemons, which are a cross between lemons and another citrus. But honestly, any lemon variety will work.
- Know your Dough: This dough can be a little sandy. The more you work with it, the softer and more cohesive it becomes. So if your cookies aren’t staying together, knead the dough a little.
- Cut with a biscuit cutter for a uniform shape.
- Don’t over-bake: These shortbread cookies do not brown. If you wait for them to brown you will be eating hard cookies. Stick with the time, and just be gentle when removing them from the pan. Once they cool they will stay together just fine. Spoon the glaze over the top if they are still warm so that they don’t break while glazing.
- Bake on a silicone baking mat for easy removal.
These cookies are bite worthy in my estimation, and I hope you will love them as much as we do.
Try these other great cookie recipes too:
- Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Cookies
- Graham cracker chocolate chip cookies
- Peppermint Chocolate Cookies
- Snickerdoodles
- Funfetti Sugar Cookies
Lemon Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter (softened)
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 Tbs lemon juice fresh
- 1 pinch of salt
- 2 1/2 cups of All Purpose Flour
Glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 Tbs lemon juice fresh
- 1/2 tbs milk 2%
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees
- In a mixer, mix together your butter and powdered sugar and lemon juice.
- When it is incorporated add in the salt and mix again.
- Then sift and add in the flour, and mix for a couple minutes. It will look like sand. Keep mixing and it will start to be more cohesive.
- Using your hands kind of squash it together to form a ball.
- Roll it out on a smooth surface using a rolling pin until it is about 3/4 a centimeter thickness.
- Use a round Cookie Cutteror biscuit cutter to form cookies.
- Transfer to a lined baking sheet. I used a pancake turner to transfer cookies from counter to pan without them falling apart or getting messed up.
- Bake on an un-greased baking sheet for 6 minutes. (do not brown)
- Let cool on pan 1 minute
- Move to a cooling rack
- Mix together glaze by whisking all ingredients together in a medium sized bowl.
- Glaze cookies by spooning glaze over the top, then let cool until glaze firms up.
- Lemon Zester a little lemon on top (optional)
- This makes 18 cookies
Video
Nutrition
Our recipe card software calculates these nutrition facts based on averages for the above ingredients, different brands, and quality of produce/meats may have different nutritional information, always calculate your own based on the specific products you use in order to achieve accurate macros for this recipe.
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Brenda Nelson says
I followed the recipe closely, but at no point was the dough like coarse sand. It was always mushy yet stiffish. ( However, I substituted granular sugar pulsed to powder.)A spatula stood up in it by itself. I used parchment paper and made the mistake of trying to lift the whole batch out of the rimmed cookie sheet, by the paper. Should have used the spatula as recommended ….Several broke. I pushed them back together and glued them with the glaze. I also baked them 8 min. not 6…and that was good. I sprinkled the glaze with grated fresh lemon rind. Very nice flavor and texture. ( oh, I added 1/4 tsp citric acid crystals to the sugar/butter creaming stage, for extra zip. Good).
Barb says
They were very tasty. Quite enjoyed them.
However, I’m only giving 4 stars because for the 1st Batch, after 6 minutes @ 375º F, they were still barely baked. Popped that batch back into the oven for another 3 minutes. Still could have done a wee bit longer.
The 2nd batch I dropped the oven to 350ºF for 13 minutes. That was perfect for my oven.
The instructions state: “rolling pin until it is about 3/4 a centimer thickness”. I made my cookies 1/4” thick. Used a 2” scalloped-edged cutter and came up with 34 cookies.
Oh, and I placed the rolled out dough into the fridge for 2 hours to firm up. I then placed the cut-out cookies back into the fridge while the oven warmed up.
Thanks for the recipe.
Tam says
These turned out perfectly. They literally melt in your mouth. I’m replacing sugar cookies with these. I have big plans for different variations…Twix, mint ect. for In fact, I managed to forget to set the timer on the last batch, and my husband refused to let me toss them…”they are a perfect dipping cookie!”
Christina says
Not the best shortbread recipe. I think just adding the zest to the batter would be better. Adding lemon juice makes the shortbread more doughy and less crisp and buttery. The glaze was too sweet for us. However, it was quick to put together and my girls had fun glazing and decorating. I just won’t be adding this one to our recipe box
Agatha says
I’m not in the mood to churn cream into butter. But these cookies turned out perfectly.
Rachael says
Hahahaha
Lora says
I know this recipe has been out for a while, but Roll them out to 3/4 of a centimeter?
I saw other reviewers say they did 1/4 inch and 3/4 INCH. How thick are they supposed to be rolled out? TIA