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These Lemon Shortbread Cookies with Lemon Icing are such a delightful change to the classic shortbread cookie. Bright, citrusy, and flavorful, you’ll love making and then enjoying a batch of these lemon shortbread cookies.
You would never guess that these lemon shortbread cookies are made with ingredients that you can find in your kitchen. These are such bright and vibrant shortbread cookies that are perfect for any occasion. This recipe makes up to 28 cookies so there’s plenty to go around!
If you love shortbread cookies, I have more for you to try! My Easy Shortbread Peppermint Cookies and Cranberry Orange Shortbread Cookies are holiday favorites.
Why You’ll Love These Shortbread Cookies
- They’re great for all ages. Kids and adults will both love these lemon shortbread cookies. Everyone will be asking for seconds.
- An easy shortbread recipe. Made with a handful of ingredients, these shortbread cookies come together so easily! No need to chill the dough before baking.
- A buttery shortbread cookie. These lemon shortbread cookies are crumbly, buttery and melt in the mouth delicious!
What You’ll Need
- Butter — unsalted, room temperature
- Powdered sugar
- Vanilla extract
- All-purpose flour
- Salt
- Lemon — both juice and zest of the lemon
- Heavy whipping cream
How to Make Lemon Shortbread Cookies with Lemon Icing
- Prepare the oven and sheet pan: Preheat the oven to 375F and line the cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Combine the wet ingredients: In a bowl of a stand mixer with paddle attachment and beat together the butter, vanilla, powdered sugar, and lemon zest on medium speed for about 5 minutes. Scrape the bowl a few times during the process.
- Combine the dry ingredients: In a separate bowl whisk together all-purpose flour and salt.
- Combine everything: Add lemon juice and mix to incorporate. Turn the mixer to its lowest speed and gradually start adding the flour/salt to the beaten butter/vanilla/ powdered sugar/lemon zest mixture. Let it incorporate.
- Knead the dough: Sprinkle your working surface with some flour. Dust your rolling pin with some flour as well. Transfer the dough onto your working surface. With your hands lightly dusted in flour carefully knead the dough together to form one big ball.
- Cut out the cookies: Roll it out to about 1/8” thick. Thicker if desired. Using a round 2.5” cookie cutter cut as many circle shapes as you can.
- Bake the cookies: Transfer them onto your prepared baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Bake for about 12-15 minutes or until lightly golden.
- Cool the cookies: Let cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes and then transfer into a cooling rack. Let cool completely.
- Make the lemon icing: Sift your powdered sugar and then whisk together the powdered sugar, lemon juice and heavy whipping cream. Add more powdered sugar if you want thicker consistency.
- Add the icing to the cookies: Halfway dip the cookies one by one into the icing. Alternatively, spoon about a teaspoon onto the center of each cookie and spread it to sides just a little bit. Sprinkle some lemon zest on top and let cookies with icing set air open for about 2-3 hours or overnight.
- If you like you can also use the dipping method to ice the cookies. Simply dip the cookies half way into the icing then set on a sheet pan. Garnish with some lemon zest and allow the icing to dry.
Tips
- You can re-roll the scraps and repeat the process of cutting out round shapes and baking the cookies. If the dough becomes too soft you can roll it out onto some parchment paper and refrigerate for 10 minutes. This would make the process of cutting out circle shapes and transferring them onto the baking sheet easier.
- Be sure to use unsalted butter as salted butter will make the cookies too salty.
- Be sure to transfer the cookies to a cooling rack as the sheet pan will still be retaining heat and might continue to cook your cookies as it cools.
- Bake the cookies on a sheet lined with parchment paper, for easy removal and clean up.
- Milk can be used in place of heavy cream for the lemon icing.
FAQs
At first glance, Meyer lemons are smaller than regular lemons. However, Meyer lemons are less acidic and sweeter in taste than regular lemons. You’re welcome to use either but regular lemons are easier to find year round than Meyer lemons.
You can carefully use a vegetable peeler to get the lemon skin off and then cut it up finely with a knife.
Do not close cookies in an airtight container until they set. Once the icing sets and becomes hard you can store cookies in an airtight container or a Ziplock bag. Enjoy these for up to 5 days.
If you want to change things up, you can add some extra toppings to your icing before it sets! Try some crushed nuts, sprinkles, etc.
When making the lemon icing, I highly recommend you sift the powdered sugar. Sifting it makes the icing more smooth and decreases the likelihood of the icing being lumpy.
If you want to freeze after cooking, skip icing them and place them in a freezer safe bag and freeze for up to 3 months. You can make the lemon icing for the cookies when you plan on enjoying them!
More Delicious Cookie To Enjoy
- Maamoul Cookies with Pistachio
- Maamoul Date Cookies
- Cookie Dough Protein Balls
- Lemon Macarons
- Edible Eggless Cookie Dough
I hope you enjoy all the recipes I share with you, including this delicious Lemon Shortbread Cookies with Lemon Icing recipe. I hope you try it, enjoy it, rate it and share it with your friends and family!
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Lemon Shortbread Cookies with Lemon Icing
Ingredients
For the Shortbread
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2½ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- juice from 1 large lemon
- zest from 1 large lemon
For the Lemon Icing
- 1 cup powdered sugar, more if thicker consistency icing desired
- 2 teaspoon heavy whipping cream, can be substitute with milk
- juice from 1 large lemon
- zest from 1 lemon to garnish
Instructions
For the Shortbread
- Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Preheat oven to 375F.
- In a bowl of a stand mixer with paddle attachment on beat together butter, vanilla, powdered sugar, and lemon zest. Do so on medium speed for about 5 minutes. Scrape the bowl a few times during the process.
- In a separate bowl whisk together all-purpose flour and salt.
- Add lemon juice and mix to incorporate. Turn the mixer to its lowest speed and gradually start adding the flour/salt to the beaten butter/vanilla/ powdered sugar/lemon zest mixture. Let it incorporate.
- Sprinkle your working surface with some flour. Dust your rolling pin with some flour as well. Transfer the dough onto your working surface. With your hands lightly dusted in flour carefully knead the dough together to form one big ball.
- Roll it out to about 1/8” thick. Thicker if desired.
- Using round 2.5” cutter cut as many circle shapes as you can.
- Transfer them onto your prepared baking sheet about 1 inch apart.
- Bake for about 12-15 minutes or until lightly golden.
- Let cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes and then transfer into a cooling rack.
- Let cool completely.
- Re-roll the scraps and repeat the process of cutting out round shapes and baking the cookies. If the dough becomes too soft you can roll it out onto some parchment paper and refrigerate for 10 minutes. This would make the process of cutting out circle shapes and transferring them onto baking sheet easier.
For the Lemon Icing
- Sift your powdered sugar.
- In medium bowl whisk together powdered sugar, lemon juice and heavy whipping cream.
- Add more powdered sugar if you want thicker consistency.
- Halfway dip the cookies one by one into the icing.
- Or spoon about a teaspoon onto the center of each cookie and spread it to sides just a little bit.
- Sprinkle with some lemon zest on top and let cookies with icing set air open for about 2-3 hours or overnight.
- Do not close cookies in an airtight container until they set. Once the icing sets and becomes hard you can store cookies in an air tight container or a Ziplock bag.
- Enjoy these for up to 5 days.
Notes
- Be sure to use unsalted butter as salted butter will make the cookies too salty.
- Be sure to transfer the cookies to a cooling rack as the sheet pan will still be retaining heat and might continue to cook your cookies as it cools.
- Bake the cookies on a sheet lined with parchment paper, for easy removal and clean up.
- Milk can be used in place of heavy cream for the lemon icing.
Recipes needs to updates to specify unsalted butter in ingredients rather than at end as a side note.
Could you provide measurements for Lemon juice and zest? The amount from one large lemon can greatly vary. Thanks. I am going to guess 2 T juice, 1 -2 tsps zest….
The juice of one lemon comes out to about 3-4 tablespoons, depending on the lemon. You can start with 2 tablespoons and see what your preference is. The zest will come out to 2 teaspoons. I don’t like to go too deep into the white flesh.
I really enjoyed these cookies! They were so simple to make and weren’t too sweet. They also had the perfect amount of lemon flavor. I will say mine baked as fast as 7 minutes but I also made mine fairly small and had to convert the temperature to Celsius so I’m sure that left room for error. Overall love these cookies!
Hi Michelle!
Glad you enjoyed the recipe! yes, the smaller they are the faster they will cook. The bigger, the longer. Also, they need to be on the middle rack. Placing it higher will also make it brown faster. But you cant go wrong with it. As long as the sides start browning, they are ready to go! Thanks for leaving a review.