Easy Lemon Shortbread Cookies

Easy Lemon Shortbread Cookies

These tender lemon shortbreads are slightly sweet with a rich buttery taste with lots of lemon zest baked right into these melt in your mouth cookies.

Course Cookies

Cuisine American, Dessert

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 30

chill time 1

Total Time 2

Servings

Calories 132kcal

Author Jere' Cassidy

Equipment

Ingredients

Colored Sanding Sugar

2 cups white sanding sugar optional or you can use already colored sanding sugar
2 drops yellow food coloring

Shortbread Ingredients

1 cup butter room temperature
½ cup sugar
2 cups cake flour
3 lemons

Instructions

Colored Sanding Sugar - Optional

Place the sanding sugar in a large bowl and add a few drops of yellow food coloring, mix well to incorporate the color throughout the sugar.
You can also use regular white sugar for this.

Making the shortbread cookies

Place the sugar in a medium-sized bowl. With a citrus zester, zest the three lemons over the sugar, then mix the sugar and zest together.
Using a stand mixing or a hand-held mixer, add the softened butter to a large bowl and beat until light and fluffy on medium speed.
Gradually add the lemon-sugar mixture and mix on medium speed until incorporated.
With the mixer on medium-low speed mix in the cake flour ½ cup at a time, mixing well with each addition
Divide the dough in half and form into two logs ½" thick.
If you are using the sanding sugar, immediately roll the dough logs into the sugar to completely coat the dough. You want the dough to be a bit tacky from rolling into the logs for the sugar to stick.
Wrap the dough logs in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for one hour.
Preheat the oven to 300° F. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
Slice the dough into ¼" slices and place on the baking sheets.
Bake the shortbreads for 30 minutes, let sit for 5 minutes on the baking sheet then place on a cooling rack to completely cool.
Store cookies in an airtight container for up to a week.

Notes

These cookies can be frozen before baking. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap then in foil. When ready to bake, defrost slightly and slice and bake as directed.

Tinting the sanding sugar is optional but it does add extra flavor to the cookies. Sanding sugar has bigger crystals than regular sugar and holds its shape in the heat.

You can also tint regular sugar if you don't have the sanding sugar, it will not bake a pretty as the sanding sugar.

After zesting the lemons, cut the lemons in half and juice them. You can use the juice immediately or freeze for later.

Nutrition